gDHOW  THES 
si  OTHER  HALF  ft 

OLIVES  CZZ3i 

&STVDIES  AMONGft 
*  THE  TENEMENTS  Jg 

£OF  NEW  YORKM 


i£x  ICtbris 


SEYMOUR  DURST 


"When  you  leave,  please  leave  this  book 

Because  it  has  been  said 
"Ever  thing  comes  t'  him  who  waits 

Except  a  loaned  book." 

[ 


Avery  Architectural  and  Fine  Arts  Library 
Gift  of  Seymour  B.  Durst  Old  York  Library 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2013 


http://archive.org/details/howotherhalflive00riis_1 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES 


GOTHAM  COURT. 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES 


STUDIES  AMONG   THE  TENEMENTS 
OF  NEW  YORK 


BY 

JACOB    A.  RIIS 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS   CHIEFLY  FROM  PHOTOGRAPHS 
TAKEN  BY  THE  AUTHOR 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES    SQRIBNER'S  SONS 
1890 


IVi  cKM 


Copyright,  1890,  by 
CHAKLES  SCEIBNER'S  SONS 


TROWS 

PRINTING  AND  BOOKBINDING  COMPANY, 
NEW  YORK. 


PREFACE. 


The  belief  that  every  man's  experience  ought  to  be 
worth  something  to-the  community  from  which  he  drew  it, 
no  matter  what  that  experience  may  be,  so  long  as  it  was 
gleaned  along  the  line  of  some  decent,  honest  work,  made 
me  begin  this  book.  With  the  result  before  him,  the 
reader  can  judge  for  himself  now  whether  or  not  I  was 
right.  Bight  or  wrong,  the  many  and  exacting  duties 
of  a  newspaper  man's  life  would  hardly  have  allowed  me 
to  bring  it  to  an  end  but  for  frequent  friendly  lifts  given 
me  by  willing  hands.  To  the  President  of  the  Board  of 
Health,  Mr.  Charles  G.  Wilson,  and'  to  Chief  Inspector 
Byrnes  of  the  Police  Force  I  am  indebted  for  much  kind- 
ness. The  patient  friendship  of  Dr.  Boger  S.  Tracy,  the 
Registrar  of  Vital  Statistics,  has  done  for  me  what  I 
never  could  have  done  for  myself  ;  for  I  know  nothing 
of  tables,  statistics  and  percentages,  while  there  is  nothing 
about  them  that  he  does  not  know.  Most  of  all,  I  owe  in 
this,  as  in  all  things  else,  to  the  womanly  sympathy  and 
the  loving  companionship  of  my  dear  wife,  ever  my  chief 
helper,  my  wisest  counsellor,  and  my  gentlest  critic. 

J.  A.  R. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Introduction,  1 

CHAPTER  I. 

Genesis  of  the  Tenement,  7 

CHAPTER  II. 

The  Awakening,  15 

CHAPTER  III. 

The  Mixed  Crowd,  21 

CHAPTER  IV. 

The  Down  Town  Back-alleys,  28 

CHAPTER  V. 

The  Italian  in  New  York,   .  48 

CHAPTER  VL 

The  Bend,  55 

CHAPTER  VII. 

A  Raid  on  the  Stale-beer  Dives,  71 


X  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  VIII.  PAGE 
The  Cheap  Lodging-houses,  82 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Chinatown,  92 

CHAPTER  X. 

Jewtown,      .  104 

CHAPTER  XI. 

The  Sweaters  of  Jewtown,  120 

CHAPTER  XII. 

The  Bohemians — Tenement-house  Cigarmaking,  .       .       .  136 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
The  Color  Line  in  New  York,  148 

CHAPTER  XTV. 

The  Common  Herd,  159 

CHAPTER  XV. 

The  Problem  of  the  Children,  179 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

"Waifs  of  the  City's  Slums,  187 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
TnE  Street  Arab,  196 

CHAPTER  XVILL 
The  Reign  of  Rum,   .  210 


CONTENTS.  xi 

CHAPTER  XIX.  page 
The  Habvest  of  Tabes,  217 

CHAPTER  XX. 

The  Wobking  Gibls  of  New  Yobk,  234 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

Paupebism  in  the  Tenements,  243 

CHAPTER  XXII. 
The  Wbecks  and  the  Waste,  255 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 
The  Man  with  the  Knife,  263 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 
What  Has  Been  Done,  268 

CHAPTER  XXV. 
How  the  Case  Stands,  282 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Gotham  Court,  Frontispiece 

PAGE 

Hell's  Kitchen  and  Sebastopol,  6 

Tenement  of  18G3,  for  Twelve  Families  on  Each  Flat,  .  12 

Tenement  of  the  Old  Style.    Birth  of  the  Air-shaft,    .  18 

At  the  Cradle  of  the  Tenement. — Doorway  of  an  Old- 
fashioned  Dwelling  on  Cherry  Hill,    .       .       .  .30 

Upstairs  in  Blindman's  Alley,   34 

An  Old  Rear-tenement  in  Roosevelt  Street,    .       .       .  45 

In  the  Home  of  an  Italian  Rag-picker,  Jersey  Street,  .  51 

The  Bend,   59 

Bandits'  Roost,   63 

Bottle  Alley,     .  •  .   66 

Lodgers  in  a  Crowded  Bayard  Street  Tenement— "  Five 
Cents  a  Spot,"  69 

An  All-night  Two-cent  Restaurant,  in  "The  Bend,"       .  75 


xiv  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

The  Tramp,   79 

Bunks  in  a  Seven-cent  Lodging-house,  Pell  Street,        .  87 

In  a  Chinese  Joint,  98 

"The  Official  Organ  of  Chinatown,"  100 

A  Tramp's  Nest  in  Ludlow  Street,       .      .       .  .106 

A  Market  Scene  in  the  Jewish  Quarter,    .       .       .  .111 

The  Old  Clo'e's  Man — in  the  Jewish  Quarters,        .  .117 

''Knee-pants"  at  Forty-five  Cents  a  Dozen — A  Ludlow 
Street  Sweater's  Shop,  127 

Bohemian  Cigarmakers  at  Work  in  their  Tenement,       .  143 

A  Black-and-tan  Dive  in  "Africa,"  157 

The  Open  Door,   .  .160 

Bird's-eye  View  of  an  East  Side  Tenement  Block,    .       .  163 

The  White  Badge  of  Mourning,  166 

In  Poverty  Gap,  West  Twenty-eighth  Street.    An  Eng- 
lish Coal-heaver's  Home,  169 

Dispossessed,  176 

The  Trench  in  the  Potter's  Field,  178 

Prayer-time  in  the  Nursery — Five  Points  House  of  In- 
dustry,  .      .      .   195 

"Didn't  Live  Nowhere,"  200 


LIST  OP  ILLUSTRATIONS.  XV 

PAGE 

Street  Arabs  £r  Sleeping  Quarters,  202 

Getting  Ready  for  Supper  in  the  Newsboys'  Lodging- 
house,   205 

A  Downtown  "Morgue,"  214 

A  Growler  Gang  in  Session,  223 

Typical  Toughs  (from  the  Rogues'  Gallery),      .       .       .  228 

Hunting  RrvER  Thieves,  231 

Sewing  and  Starving  in  an  Elizabeth  Street  Attic,       .  238 

A  Flat  in  the  Pauper  Barracks,  West  Thirty-eighth 
Street,  with  all  its  Furniture,  245 

Coffee  at  One  Cent,  252 

Evolution  of  tee  Tenement  in  .Twenty  Years,  .       .       .  269 

General  Plan  of  the  Riverside  Buildings  (A.  T.  White's) 

in  Brooklyn,  292 

Floor  Plan  of  One  Division  in  the  Riverside  Buildings, 
Showing  Six  "Apartments,"  293 


<c  With  gates  of  silver  and  bars  of  gold 

Ye  have  fenced  my  sheep  from  their  father's  fold  ; 

I  have  heard  the  dropping  of  their  tears 

In  heaven  these  eighteen  hundred  years." 

' '  O  Lord  and  Master,  not  ours  the  guilt, 
We  build  but  as  our  fathers  built ; 
Behold  thine  images,  how  they  stand, 
Sovereign  and  sole,  through  all  our  land." 

Then  Christ  sought  out  an  artisan, 
A  low-browed,  stunted,  haggard  man, 
And  a  motherless  girl,  whose  ringers  thin 
Pushed  from  her  faintly  want  and  sin. 

These  set  he  in  the  midst  of  them, 
And  as  they  drew  back  their  garment-hem, 
For  fear  of  defilement,  "  Lo,  here,"  said  he, 
"  The  images  ye  have  made  of  me !  " 

— James  Russell  Lowell. 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


INTRODUCTION. 

Long  ago  it  was  said  that  "  one  half  of  the  world  does 
not  know  how  the  other  half  lives."  That  was  true  then. 
It  did  not  know  because  it  did  not  care.  The  half  that 
was  on  top  cared  little  for  the  struggles,  and  less  for  the 
fate  of  those  who  were  underneath,  so  long  as  it  was  able 
to  hold  them  there  and  keep  its  own  seat.  There  came  a 
time  when  the  discomfort  and  crowding  below  were  so 
great,  and  the  consequent  upheavals  so  violent,  that  it 
was  no  longer  an  easy  thing  to  do,  and  then  the  upper 
half  fell  to  inquiring  what  was  the  matter.  Information 
on  the  subject  has  been  accumulating  rapidly  since,  and 
the  whole  world  has  had  its  hands  full  answering  for  its 
old  ignorance. 

In  Xew  York,  the  youngest  of  the  world's  great  cities, 
that  time  came  later  than  elsewhere,  because  the  crowding 
had  not  been  so  great.  There  were  those  who  believed 
that  it  would  never  come ;  but  their  hopes  were  vain. 
Greed  and  reckless  selfishness  wrought  like  results  here  as 
in  the  cities  of  older  lands.  6  'When  the  great  riot  oc- 
curred in  1863,"  so  reads  the  testimony  of  the  Secretary 

of  the  Prison  Association  of  New  York  before  a  lesjisla- 

s 

tive  committee  appointed  to  investigate  causes  of  the 


2 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


increase  of  crime  in  the  State  twenty-five  years  ago, 
"  every  hiding-place  and  nursery  of  crime  discovered  it- 
self by  immediate  and  active  participation  in  the  opera- 
tions of  the  mob.  Those  very  places  and  domiciles,  and 
all  that  are  like  them,  are  to-day  nurseries  of  crime,  and 
of  the  vices  and  disorderly  courses  which  lead  to  crime. 
By  far  the  largest  part  —  eighty  per  cent,  at  least  —  of 
crimes  against  property  and  against  the  person  are  perpe- 
trated by  individuals  who  have  either  lost  connection  with 
home  life,  or  never  had  any,  or  whose  homes  had  ceased 
to  he  sufficiently  separate,  decent,  and  desirable  to  afford 
what  are  regarded  as  ordinary  wholesome  influences  of 
home  and  family.  .  .  .  The  younger  criminals  seem 
to  come  almost  exclusively  from  the  worst  tenement  house 
districts,  that  is,  when  traced  back  to  the  very  places  where 
they  had  their  homes  in  the  city  here."  Of  one  thing 
New  York  made  snre  at  that  early  stage  of  the  inquiry  : 
the  boundary  line  of  the  Other  Half  lies  through  the  tene- 
ments. 

It  is  ten  years  and  over,  now,  since  that  line  divided  Xew 
York's  populati  n  evenly.  To-day  three-fonrths  of  its 
people  live  in  the  tenements,  and  the  nineteenth  century 
drift  of  the  population  to  the  cities  is  sending  ever-increas- 
ing multitudes  to  crowd  them.  The  fifteen  thousand  ten- 
ant houses  that  were  the  despair  of  the  sanitarian  in  the 
past  generation  have  swelled  into  thirty-seven  thousand, 
and  more  than  twelve  hundred  thousand  persons  call  them 
home.  The  one  way  out  he  saw — rapid  transit  to  the  sub- 
urbs— has  brought  no  relief.  AYe  know  now  that  there  is 
no  way  out ;  that  the  "  system  "  that  was  the  evil  offspring 
of  public  neglect  and  private  greed  has  come  to  stay,  a 
storm-centre  forever  of  our  civ  ilization.  Nothing  is  left 
but  to  make  the  best  of  a  bad  bargain. 


INTRODUCTION. 


3 


What  the  tenements  are  and  how  they  grow  to  what 
they  are,  we  shall  see  hereafter.  The  story  is  dark 
enough,  drawn  from  the  plain  public  records,  to  send  a 
chill  to  any  heart.  If  it  shall  appear  that  the  sufferings 
and  the  sins  of  the  "  other  half,''  and  the  evil  they  breed, 
are  but  as  a  just  punishment  upon  the  community  that 
gave  it  no  other  choice,  it  will  be  because  that  is  the  truth. 
The  boundary  line  lies  there  because,  while  the  forces  for 
srood  on  one  side  vastly  outweigh  the  bad  —  it  were  not 
well  otherwise — in  the  tenements  all  the  influences  make 
for  evil ;  because  they  are  the  hot-beds  of  the  epidemics 
that  carry  death  to  rich  and  poor  alike ;  the  nurseries 
of  pauperism  and  crime  that  fill  our  jails  and  police  courts  ; 
that  throw  off  a  scum  of  forty  thousand  human  wrecks  to 
the  island  asylums  and  workhouses  year  by  year ;  that 
turned  out  in  the  last  eight  years  a  round  half  million  beg- 
gars to  prey  upon  our  charities ;  that  maintain  a  standing 
army  of  ten  thousand  tramps  with  all  that  that  im- 
plies ;  because,  above  all,  they  touch  the  family  life  with 
deadly  moral  contagion.  This  is  their  worst  crime,  in- 
separable from  the  system.  That  we  have  to  own  it  the 
child  of  our  own  wrong  does  not  excuse  it,  even  though 
it  gives  it  claim  upon  our  utmost  patience  and  tenderest 
charity. 

What  are  you  going  to  do  about  it  ?  is  the  question  of 
to-day.  It  was  asked  once  of  our  city  in  taunting  defiance 
by  a  band  of  political  cutthroats,  the  legitimate  outgrowth 
of  life  on  the  tenement-house  level.*  Law  and  order 
found  the  answer  then  and  prevailed.  With  our  enor- 
mously swelling  population  held  in  this  galling  bondage, 
will  that  answer  always  be  given  ?  It  will  depend  on  how 
fully  the  situation  that  prompted  the  challenge  is  grasped. 
":f  Tweed  was  born  and  bred  in  a  Fourth  Ward  tenement. 


4 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


Forty  per  cent,  of  the  distress  among  the  poor,  said  a  re- 
cent official  report,  is  due  to  drunkenness.  But  the  first 
legislative  committee  ever  appointed  to  probe  this  sore 
went  deeper  down  and  uncovered  its  roots.  The  "  con- 
clusion forced  itself  upon  it  that  certain  conditions  and  as- 
sociations of  human  life  and  habitation  are  the  prolific 
parents  of  corresponding  habits  arid  morals,"  and  it  rec- 
ommended "  the  prevention  of  drunkenness  by  providing 
for  every  man  a  clean  and  comfortable  home."  Years 
after,  a  sanitary  inquiry  brought  to  light  the  fact  that 
"  more  than  one-half  of  the  tenements  with  two-thirds 
of  their  population  were  held  by  owners  who  made  the 
keeping  of  them  a  business,  generally  a  speculation.  The 
owner  was  seeking  a  certain  percentage  on  his  outlay,  and 
that  percentage  very  rarely  fell  below  fifteen  per  cent., 
and  frequently  exceeded  thirty.*  .  .  .  The  complaint 
was  universal  among  the  tenants  that  they  were  entirely 
uncared  for,  and  that  the  only  answer  to  their  requests  to 
have  the  place  put  in  order  by  repairs  and  necessary  im- 
provements was  that  they  must  pay  their  rent  or  leave. 
The  agent's  instructions  were  simple  but  emphatic:  'Col- 
lect the  rent  in  advance,  or,  failing,  eject  the  occupants.' " 
Upon  such  a  stock  grew  this  upas-tree.  Small  wonder  the 
fruit  is  bitter.  The  remedy  that  shall  be  an  effective  an- 
swer to  the  coming  appeal  for  justice  must  proceed  from 
the  public  conscience.  Neither  legislation  nor  charity  can 
cover  the  ground.  The  greed  of  capital  that  wrought  the 
evil  must  itself  undo  it,  as  far  as  it  can  now  be  undone. 
Homes  must  be  built  for  the  working  masses  by  those 
who  employ  their  labor  ;  but  tenements  must  cease  to  be 

*  Forty  per  cent,  was  declared  by  witnesses  before  a  Senate  Com- 
mittee to  be  a  fair  average  interest  on  tenement  property.  Instances 
were  given  of  its  being  one  hundred  per  cent,  and  over. 


INTRODUCTION. 


5 


"good  property''  in  the  old,  heartless  sense.  "Philan- 
thropy and  five  per  cent.''  is  the  penance  exacted. 

If  this  is  true  from  a  purely  economic  point  of  view, 
what  then  of  the  outlook  from  the  Christian  standpoint  I 
Xot  long  ago  a  great  meeting  was  held  in  this  city,  of  all 
denominations  of  religious  faith,  to  discuss  the  question 
how  to  lay  hold  of  these  teeming  masses  in  the  tenements 
with  Christian  influences,  to  which  they  are  now  too  often 
strangers.  Might  not  the  conference  have  found  in  the 
warning  of  one  Brooklyn  builder,  who  has  invested  his 
capital  on  this  plan  and  made  it  pay  more  than  a  money 
interest,  a  hint  worth  heeding :  "  How  shall  the  love  of 
God  be  understood  by  those  who  have  been  nurtured  in 
sight  only  of  the  greed  of  man  ?  " 


CHAPTER  I. 


GENESIS  OF  THE  TENEMENT. 

11I1E  first  tenement  Xew  York  knew  bore  the  mark  of 
-  -  Cain  from  its  birth,  though  a  generation  passed 
before  the  writing  was  deciphered.  It  was  the  "rear 
house,''  infamous  ever  after  in  our  city's  history.  There 
had  been  tenant  -  houses  before,  but  they  were  not  built 
for  the  purpose.  Nothing  would  probably  have  shocked 
their  original  owners  more  than  the  idea  of  their  harbor- 
ing  a  promiscuous  crowd  ;  for  they  were  the  decorous 
homes  of.' the  old  Knickerbockers,  the  proud  aristocracy 
of  Manhattan  in  the  early  days. 

It  was  the  stir  and  bustle  of  trade,  together  with  the 
tremendous  immigration  that  followed  upon  the  war  of 
1S12  that  dislodged  them.  In  thirty-five  years  the  city 
of  less  than  a  hundred  thousand  came  to  harbor  half  a 
million  souls,  for  whom  homes  had  to  be  found.  Within 
the  memory  of  men  not  yet  in  their  prime,  Washington 
had  moved  from  his  house  on  Cherry  Hill  as  too  far  out 
of  town  to  be  easily  reached.  Xow  the  old  residents  fol- 
lowed his  example  ;  but  they  moved  in  a  different  direction 
and  for  a  different  reason.  Their  comfortable  dwellings 
in  the  once  fashionable  streets  along  the  East  River  front 
fell  into  the  hands  of  real-estate  agents  and  boarding- 
house  keepers  ;  and  here,  says  the  report  to  the  Legislature 
of  1857,  when  the  evils  engendered  had  excited  just  alarm, 
"  in  its  beginning,  the  tenant-house  became  a  real  blessing 


8 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


to  that  class  of  industrious  poor  whose  small  earnings  lim- 
ited their  expenses,  and  whose  employment  in  workshops, 
stores,  or  about  the  warehouses  and  thoroughfares,  render 
a  near  residence  of  much  importance."  Not  for  long, 
however.  As  business  increased,  and  the  city  grew  with 
rapid  strides,  the  necessities  of  the  poor  became  the  op- 
portunity of  their  wealthier  neighbors,  and  the  stamp 
was  set  upon  the  old  houses,  suddenly  become  valuable, 
which  the  best  thought  and  effort  of  a  later  age  has  vainly 
struggled  to  efface.  Their  "  large  rooms  were  partitioned 
into  several  smaller  ones,  without  regard  to  light  or  ventila- 
tion, the  rate  of  rent  being  lower  in  proportion  to  space 
or  height  from  the  street ;  and  they  soon  became  filled 
from  cellar  to  garret  with  a  class  of  tenantry  living  from 
hand  to  mouth,  loose  in  morals,  improvident  in  habits, 
degraded,  and  squalid  as  beggary  itself."  It  was  thus  the 
dark  bedroom,  prolific  of  untold  depravities,  came  into 
the  world.  It  was  destined  to  survive  the  old  houses. 
In  their  new  role,  says  the  old  report,  eloquent  in  its  in- 
dignant denunciation  of  "  evils  more  destructive  than 
wars,"  "  they  were  not  intended  to  last.  Rents  were 
fixed  high  enough  to  cover  damage  and  abuse  from  this 
class,  from  whom  nothing  was  expected,  and  the  most  was 
made  of  them  while  they  lasted.  Neatness,  order,  Clean- 
liness, were  never  dreamed  of  in  connection  with  the  ten- 
ant-house system,  as  it  spread  its  localities  from  year  to 
year ;  while  reckless  slovenliness,  discontent,  privation, 
and  ignorance  were  left  to  work  out  their  invariable  re- 
sults, until  the  entire  premises  reached  the  level  of  ten- 
ant-house dilapidation,  containing,  but  sheltering  not, 
the  miserable  hordes  that  crowded  beneath  smouldering, 
water-rotted  roofs  or  burrowed  among  the  rats  of  clammy 
cellars."    Yet  so  illogical  is  human  greed  that,  at  a  later 


GENESIS  OF  THE  TENEMENT. 


9 


day,  when  called  to  account,  "  the  proprietors  frequently 
urged  the  filthy  habits  of  the  tenants  as  an  excuse  for  the 
condition  of  their  property,  utterly  losing  sight  of  the 
fact  that  it  was  the  tolerance  of  those  habits  which  was 
the  real  evil,  and  that  for  this  they  themselves  were  alone 
responsible." 

Still  the  pressure  of  the  crowds  did  not  abate,  and  in 
the  old  garden  where  the  stolid  Dutch  burgher  grew  his 
tulips  or  early  cabbages  a  rear  house  was  built,  generally 
of  wood,  two  stories  high  at  first.  Presently  it  was  carried 
up  another  story,  and  another.  "Where  two  families  had 
lived  ten  moved  in.  The  front  house  followed  suit,  if 
the  brick  walls  were  strong  enough.  The  question  was 
not  always  asked,  judging  from  complaints  made  by  a  con- 
temporary witness,  that  the  old  buildings  were  "  often 
carried  up  to  a  great  height  without  regard  to  the  strength 
of  the  foundation  walls."  It  was  rent  the  owner  was  af- 
ter ;  nothing  was  said  in  the  contract  about  either  the 
safety  or  the  comfort  of  the  tenants.  The  garden  gate  no 
longer  swung  on  its  rusty  hinges.  The  shell-paved  walk 
had  become  an  alley  ;  what  the  rear  house  had  left  of  the 
garden,  a  "court."  Plent}'  such  are  yet  to  be  found  in 
the  Fourth  Ward,  with  here  and  there  one  of  the  original 
rear  tenements. 

Worse  was  to  follow.  It  was  "  soon  perceived  by  estate 
owners  and  agents  of  property  that  a  greater  percentage 
of  profits  could  be  realized  by  the  conversion  of  houses 
and  blocks  into  barracks,  and  dividing  their  space  into 
smaller  proportions  capable  of  containing  human  life 
within  four  walls.  .  .  .  Blocks  were  rented  of  real  es- 
tate owners,  or 'purchased  on  time,'  or  taken  in  charge  at 
a  percentage,  and  held  for  under-letting."  With  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  middleman,  wholly  irresponsible,  and  nt- 


10 


HOW  THE  OTHEPw  HALF  LIVES. 


terly  reckless  and  unrestrained,  began  the  era  of  tenement 
building  which  turned  out  such  blocks  as  Gotham  Court, 
where,  in  one  cholera  epidemic  that  scarcely  touched  the 
clean  wards,  the  tenants  died  at  the  rate  of  one  hundred 
and  ninety-five  to  the  thousand  of  population ;  which 
forced  the  general  mortality  of  the  city  up  from  1  in 
41.83  in  1815,  to  1  in  27.33  in  1855,  a  year  of  unusual 
freedom  from  epidemic  disease,  and  which  wrung  from 
the  early  organizers  of  the  Health  Department  this  wail : 
"  There  are  numerous  examples  of  tenement-houses  in 
which  are  lodged  several  hundred  people  that  have  a  pro 
rata  allotment  of  ground  area  scarcely  equal  to  two  square 
yards  upon  the  city  lot,  court -yards  and  all  included." 
The  tenement-house  population  had  swelled  to  half  a  mill- 
ion souls  by  that  time,  and  on  the  East  Side,  in  what  is  still 
the  most  densely  populated  district  in  all  the  world,  China 
not  excluded,  it  was  packed  at  the  rate  of  290,000  to  the 
square  mile,  a  state  of  affairs  wholly  unexampled.  The  ut- 
most cupidity  of  other  lands  and  other  days  had  never  con- 
trived to  herd  mr.eh  more  than  half  that  number  within  the 
same  sj)ace.  The  greatest  crowding  of  Old  London  was  at 
the  rate  of  175,816.  Swine  roamed  the  streets  and  gutters 
as  their  principal  scavengers.*  The  death  of  a  child  in  a 
tenement  was  registered  at  the  Bureau  of  Yital  Statistics 
as  "plainly  due  to  suffocation  in  the  foul  air  of  an  unventi- 
lated  apartment,"  and  the  Senators,  who  had  come  down 
from  Albany  to  find  out  what  was  the  matter  with  Xew 
Ybrkj  reported  that  "there  are  annually  cut  off  from  the 
population  by  disease  and  death  enough  human  beings 
to  people  a  city,  and  enough  human  labor  to  sustain  it." 

*  It  was  not  until  the  winter  of  18G7  that  owners  of  swine  were  pro- 
hibited by  ordinance  from  letting  them  run  at  large  in  the  built-up 
portions  of  the  city. 


GENESIS  OF  THE  TENEMENT. 


11 


And  yet  experts  had  testified  that,  as  compared  with  up- 
town, rents  were  from  twenty-live  to  thirty  per  cent, 
higher  in  the  worst  slums  of  the  lower  wards,  with  such 
accommodations  as  were  enjoyed,  for  instance,  by  a  "  fam- 
ily with  boarders  "  in  Cedar  Street,  who  fed  hogs  in  the 
cellar  that  contained  eight  or  ten  loads  of  manure  ;  or 
<;  one  room  12  x  12  with  five  families  living  in  it,  com- 
prising twenty  persons  of  both  sexes  and  all  ages,  with 
only  two  beds,  without  partition,  screen,  chair,  or  table." 
The  rate  of  rent  has  been  successfully  maintained  to  the 
present  day,  though  the  hog  at  least  lias  been  eliminated. 

Lest  anybody  flatter  himself  with  the  notion  that  these 
were  evils  "of  a  day  that  is  happily  past  and  may  safely  be 
forgotten,  let  me  mention  here  three  very  recent  instances 
of  tenement-house  life  that  came  under  my  notice.  One 
was  the  burning  of  a  rear  house  in  Mott  Street,  from  ap- 
pearances uiie  of  the  original  tenant-houses  that  made 
their  owners  rich.  The  fire  hiade  homeless  ten  families, 
who  had  paid  an  average  of  §5  a  month  for  their  mean 
little  cubby-holes.  The  owner  himself  told  me  that  it  was 
fully  insured  for  $800,  though  it  brought  him  in  $600  a 
year  rent.  lie  evidently  considered  himself  especially 
entitled  to  be  pitied  for  losing  such  valuable  property. 
Another  was  the  case  of  a  hard-working  family  of  man 
and  wife,  young  people  from  the  old  country,  who  took 
poison  together  in  a  Crosby  Street  tenement  because  they 
were  "  tired."  There  was  no  other  explanation,  and  none 
was  needed  when  I  stood  in  the  room  in  which  they  had 
lived.  It  was  in  the  attic  with  sloping  ceiling  and  a  sin- 
gle window  so  far  out  on  the  roof  that  it  seemed  not  to 
belong  to  the  place  at  all.  With  scarcely  room  enough  to 
turn  around  in  they  had  begn  compelled  to  pay  five  dollars 
and  a  half  a  month  in  advance.    There  were  four  such 


12 


ITOW  THE  OTHER  HALE  LIVES. 


rooms  in  that  attic,  and  together  they  brought  in  as  much 
as  many  a  handsome  little  cottage,  in  a  pleasant  part  of 

Brooklyn.  The  third  in- 
stance was  that  of  a  colored 
family  of  husband,  wife, 
and  baby  in  a  wretched 
rear  rookery  in  West  Third 
Street.  Their  rent  was 
eight  dollars  and  a  half 
for  a  single  room  on  the 
top-story,  so  small  that  I 
was  unable  to  get  a  photo- 
graph of  it  even  by  plac- 
ing the  camera  outside  the 
open  door.  Three  short 
steps  across  either  way 
would  have  measured  its 
full  extent. 

There  was  just  one  ex- 
cuse for  the  early  tene- 
ment-house builders,  and 
their  successors  may  plead 
it  with  nearly  as  good 
right  for  what  it  is  worth. 
"  Such,"  says  an  official  re- 
port, "is  the  lack  of  house- 
room  in  the  city  that  any 
kind  of  tenement  can  be 
lodgers,  if  there  is  space 
offered."    Thousands  were  living  in  cellars.    There  were 

*  This  "  unventilated  and  fever-breeding  structure  "  the  year  after 
it  was  built  was  picked  out  by  the  Council  of  Hygiene,  then  just  organ- 
ized, and  presented  to  the  Citizens'  Association  of  New  York  as  a  speci- 


TENEMENT  OF  1863,  FOR  TWELVE  FAMILIES 
ON  EACH  FLAT.* 

D,  dark.   L,  light.   H,  halls. 


immediately  crowded  with 


GENESIS  OF  THE  TENEMENT. 


13 


three  hundred  underground  lodging-houses  in  the  city 
when  the  Health  Department  was  organized.  Some  fif- 
teen years  before  that  the  old  Baptist  Church  in  Mul- 
berry Street,  just  off  Chatham  Street,  had  been  sold,  and 
the  rear  half  of  the  frame  structure  had  been  converted 
into  tenements  that  with  their  swarming  population  be- 
came the  scandal  even  of  that  reckless  age.  The  wretch- 
ed pile  harbored  no  less  than  forty  families,  and  the 
annual  rate  of  deaths  to  the  population  was  officially 
stated  to  be  75  in  1,000.  These  tenements  were  an  ex- 
treme type  of  very  many,  for  the  big  barracks  had  by 
this  time  spread  east  and  west  and  far  up  the  island  into 
the  sparsely  settled  wards.  "Whether  or  not  the  title  was 
clear  to  the  land  upon  which  they  were  built  was  of 
less  account  than  that  the  rents  were  collected.  If  there 
were  damages  to  pay,  the  tenant  had  to  foot  them.  Cases 
were  "  very  frequent  when  property  was  in  litigation,  and 
two  or  three  different  parties  were  collecting  rents."  Of 
course  under  such  circumstances  "  no  repairs  were  ever 
made.'' 

The  climax  had  been  reached.  The  situation  was  summed 
up  by  the  Society  for  the  Improvement  of  the  Condition  of 
the  Poor  in  these  words :  "  Crazy  old  buildings,  crowded 
rear  tenements  in  filthy  yards,  dark,  damp  basements,  leak- 
ing garrets,  shops,  outhouses,  and  stables  *  converted  into 
dwellings,  though  scarcely  fit  to  shelter  brutes,  are  habi- 

men  "multiple  domicile"  in  a  desirable  street,  with  the  following 
comment:  "Here  are  twelve  living-rooms  and  twenty-one  bedrooms, 
and  only  six  of  the  latter  have  any  provision  or  possibility  for  the  ad- 
mission of  light  and  air,  excepting  through  the  family  sitting-  and  liv- 
ing-room ;  being  utterly  dark,  close,  and  unventilated.  The  living- 
rooms  are  but  10  x  12  feet ;  the  bedrooms  6|  x  7  feet." 

*  "A  lot  50x60,  contained  twenty  stables,  rented  for  dwellings  at 
$15  a  year  each  ;  cost  of  the  whole  $600." 


/ 


14 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


tations  of  thousands  of  our  fellow-beings  in  this  wealthy, 
Christian  city."  "  The  city,"  says  its  historian,  Mrs.  Mar- 
tha Lamb,  commenting  on  the  era  of  aqueduct  building 
between  1835  and  1815,  "  was  a  general  asylum  for  va- 
grants." Young  vagabonds,  the  natural  offspring  of  such 
"  home  "  conditions,  overran  the  streets.  Juvenile  crime 
increased  fearfully  year  by  year.  The  Children's  Aid 
Society  and  kindred  philanthropic  organizations  were  yet 
unborn,  but  in  the  city  directory  was  to  be  found  the  ad- 
dress of  the  "  American  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Ed- 
ucation in  Africa." 


CHAPTER  II. 


THE  AWAKENING. 

THE  dread  of  advancing  cholera,  with  the  guilty  knowl- 
edge of  the  harvest  tield  that  awaited  the  plague  in 
New  York's  slums,  pricked  the  conscience  of  the  commu- 
nity into  action  soon  after  the  close  of  the  war.  A  citizens' 
movement  resulted  in  the  organization  of  a  Board  of 
Health  and  the  adoption  of  the  "  Tenement-House  Act" 
of  18G7,  the  first  step  toward  remedial  legislation.  xV  thor- 
ough canvass  of  the  tenements  had  heen  begun  already  in 
the  previous  year ;  but  the  cholera  first,  and  next  a  scourge 
of  small-pox,  delayed  the  work,  while  emphasizing  the 
need  of  it,  so  that  it  was  1SG0  before  it  got  fairly  under 
way  and  began  to  tell.  The  dark  bedroom  fell  under  the 
ban  first.  In  that  year  the  Board  ordered  the  cutting  of 
more  than  forty-six  thousand  windows  in  interior  rooms, 
chiefly  for  ventilation — for  little  or  no  light  was  to  be  had 
from  the  dark  hallways.  Air-shafts  were  unknown.  The 
saw  had  a  job  all  that  summer  ;  by  early  fall  nearly  all 
the  orders  had  been  carried  out.  Xot  without  opposition  ; 
obstacles  were  thrown  in  the  way  of  the  officials  on  the 
one  side  by  the  owners  of  the  tenements,  who  saw  in 
every  order  to  repair  or  clean  up  only  an  item  of  added 
expense  to  diminish  their  income  from  the  rent ;  on  the 
other  side  by  the  tenants  themselves,  who  had  sunk,  after 
a  generation  of  unavailing  protest,  to  the  level  of  their 
surroundings,  and  were  at  last  content  to  remain  there. 


16 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


The  tenements  had  bred  their  Nemesis,  a  proletariat  ready 
and  able  to  avenge  the  wrongs  of  their  crowds.  Already 
it  taxed  the  city  heavily  for  the  support  of  its  jails  and 
charities.  The  basis  of  opposition,  curiously  enough,  was 
the  same  at  both  extremes  ;  owner  and  tenant  alike  con- 
sidered official  interference  an  infringement  of  personal 
rights,  and  a  hardship.  It  took  long  years  of  weary  labor 
to  make  good  the  claim  of  the  sunlight  to  such  corners  of 
the  dens  as  it  could  reach  at  all.  Not  until  five  years 
after  did  the  department  succeed  at  last  in  ousting  the 
"cave-dwellers"  and  closing  some  five  hundred  and  fifty 
cellars  south  of  Houston  Street,  many  of  them  below 
tide-water,  that  had  been  used  as  living  apartments.  In 
many  instances  the  police  had  to  drag  the  tenants  out  by 
force. 

The  work  went  on ;  but  the  need  of  it  only  grew  with 
the  effort.  The  Sanitarians  were  following  up  an  evil  that 
grew  faster  than  they  went ;  like  a  fire,  it  could  only  be 
headed  off,  not  chased,  with  success.  Official  reports, 
read  in  the  churches  in  1879,  characterized  the  younger 
criminals  as  victims  of  low  social  conditions  of  life  and 
unhealthy,  overcrowded  lodgings,  brought  up  in  "  an  at- 
mosphere of  actual  darkness,  moral  and  physical."  This 
after  the  saw  had  been  busy  in  the  dark  corners  ten  years  ! 
"  If  we  could  see  the  air  breathed  by  these  poor  creatures 
in  their  tenements,"  said  a  well-known  physician,  "  it 
would  show  itseif  to  be  fouler  than  the  mud  of  the  gut- 
ters." Little  improvement  was  apparent  despite  all  that 
had  been  done.  "  The  new  tenements,  that  have  been  re- 
cently built,  have  been  usually  as  badly  planned  as  the 
old,  with  dark  and  unhealthy  rooms,  often  over  wet  cel- 
lars, where  extreme  overcrowding  is  permitted,"  was  the 
verdict  of  one  authority.    These  are  the  houses  that  to- 


THE  AWAKENING. 


17 


day  perpetuate  the  worst  traditions  of  the  past,  and  they 
are  counted  hy  thousands.  The  Five  Points  had  been 
cleansed,  as  far  as  the  immediate  neighborhood  was  con- 
cerned, but  the  Mulberry  Street  Bend  was  fast  outdoing 
it  in  foulness  not  a  stone's  throw  away,  and  new  centres 
of  corruption  were  continually  springing  up  and  getting 
the  upper  hand  whenever  vigilance  was  relaxed  for  ever 
so  short  a  time.  It  is  one  of  the  curses  of  the  tenement- 
house  system  that  the  worst  houses  exercise  a  levelling  in- 
fluence upon  all  the  rest,  just  as  one  bad  boy  in  a  school- 
room will  spoil  the  whole  class.  It  is  one  of  the  ways 
the  evil  that  was  "  the  result  of  forgetfulness  of  the 
poor,"  as  the  Council  of  Hygiene  mildly  put  it,  has  of 
avenging  itself. 

The  determined  effort  to  head  it  off  by  laying  a  strong 
hand  upon  the  tenement  builders  that  has  been  the  chief 
business  of  the  Health  Board  of  recent  years,  dates  from 
this  period.  The  era  of  the  air-shaft  has  not  solved  the 
problem  of:  housing  the  poor,  but  it  has  made  good  use  of 
limited  opportunities.  Over  the  new  houses  sanitary  law 
exercises  full  control.  But  the  old  remain.  They  cannot 
be  summarily  torn  down,  though  in  extreme  cases  the 
authorities  can  order  them  cleared.  The  outrageous  over- 
crowding, too,  remains.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  tene- 
ments. Poverty,  their  badge  and  typical  condition,  in- 
vites— compels  it.  All  efforts  to  abate  it  result  only  in 
temporary  relief.  As  long  as  they  exist  it  will  exist  with 
them.  And  the  tenements  will  exist  in  New  York  for- 
ever. 

To-day,  what  is  a  tenement  ?    The  law  defines  it  as  a 
house  "  occupied  by  three  or  more  families,  living  inde- 
pendently and  doing  their  cooking  on  the  premises  ;  or  by 
more  than  two  families  on  a,  floor,  so  living  and  cooking 
2 


18 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


and  having  a  common  right  in  the  halls,  stairways,  yards, 
etc."    That  is  the  legal  meaning,  and  includes  flats  and 
apartment-houses,  with  which  we  have  nothing  to  do.  In 
its  narrower  sense  the  typical  tene- 
ment was  thus  described  when  last 
arraigned  before  the  bar  of  public 
justice:    "It  is  generally  a  brick 
building  from  four  to  six  stories 
high  on  the  street,  frequently  with 
a  store  on  the  first  floor  which, 
when  used  for  the  sale  of  liquor,  has 
a  side  opening  for 
the  benefit  of  the 
inmates    and  to 
evade   the  Sun- 
day  law;  four 
families  occupy 
each  floor,  and  a 
set  of  rooms  con- 
sists of  one  or  two 
dark  closets,  used 
as  bedrooms,  with 
a  living  room 
twelve  feet  by 
ten.     The  stair- 
case is  too  often 

TENEMENT  OF  THE  OLD  STYLE.   BIRTH  OF  THE  AIR-SHAFT.        ft  dai'k  Well  in  tllG 

centre  of  the 

house,  and  no  direct  through  ventilation  is  possible,  each 
family  being  separated  from  the  other  by  partitions.  Fre- 
quently the  rear  of  the  lot  is  occupied  by  another  building 
of  three  stories  high  with  two  families  on  a  floor."  The 
picture  is  nearly  as  true  to-day  as  ten  years  ago,  and  will  be 


THE  AWAKENING. 


19 


for  a  long  time  to  come.  The  dim  light  admitted  by  the 
air-shaft  shines  upon  greater  crowds  than  ever.  Tene- 
ments are  still  "  good  property,"  and  the  poverty  of  the 
poor  man  his  destruction.  A  barrack  down  town  where  he 
has  to  live  because  he  is  poor  brings  in  a  third  more  rent 
than  a  decent  flat  house  in  Harlem.  The  statement  once 
made  a  sensation  that  between  seventy  and  eighty  children 
had  been  found  in  one  tenement.  It  no  longer  excites 
even  passing  attention,  when  the  sanitary  police  report 
counting  101  adults  and  91  children  in  a  Crosby  Street 
house,  one  of  twins,  built  together.  The  children  in 
the  other,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  numbered  89,  a  total 
of  180  for  two  tenements  !  Or  when  a  midnight  inspec- 
tion in  Mulberry  Street  unearths  a  hundred  and  fifty 
" lodgers"  sleeping  on  filthy  floors  in  two  buildings. 
Spite  of  brown-stone  trimmings,  plate-glass  and  mosaic 
vestibule  floors,  the  water  does  not  rise  in  summer  to  the 
second  story,  while  the  beer  flows  unchecked  to  the  all- 
night  picnics  on  the  roof.  The  saloon  with  the  side-door 
and  the  landlord  divide  the  prosperity  of  the  place  be- 
tween them,  and  the  tenant,  in  sullen  submission,  foots 
the  bills. 

"Where  are  the  tenements  of  to-day  ?  Say  rather : 
where  are  they  not  ?  In  fifty  years  they  have  crept  up 
from  the  Fourth  Ward  slums  and  the  Five  Points  the 
whole  length  of  the  island,  and  have  polluted  the  Annexed 
District  to  the  Westchester  line.  Crowding  all  the  lower 
wards,  wherever  business  leaves  a  foot  of  ground  un- 
claimed ;  strung  along  both  rivers,  like  ball  and  chain 
tied  to  the  foot  of  every  street,  and  filling  up  Harlem 
with  their  restless,  pent-up  multitudes,  they  hold  within 
their  clutch  the  wealth  and  business  of  New  York,  hold 
them  at  their  mercy  in  the*  day  of  mob-rule  and  wrath. 


20  HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 

The  bullet-proof  shutters,  the  stacks  of  hand-grenades, 
and  the  Gatling  guns  of  the  Sub-Treasury  are  tacit  admis- 
sions of  the  fact  and  of  the  quality  of  the  mercy  expected. 
The  tenements  to-day  are  New  York,  harboring  three- 
fourths  of  its  population.  When  another  generation  shall 
have  doubled  the  census  of  our  city,  and  to  that  vast  army 
of  workers,  held  captive  by  poverty,  the  very  name  of  home 
shall  be  as  a  bitter  mockery,  what  will  the  harvest  be  ? 


CHAPTER  ILL 


THE  MIXED  CROWD. 


WHEN  once  I  asked  the  agent  of  a  notorious  Fourth 
Ward  alley  how  many  people  might  be  Hying  in  it 
I  was  told :  One  hundred  and  forty  families,  one  hundred 
Irish,  thirty-eight  Italian,  and  two  that  spoke  the  German 
tongue.  Barring  the  agent  herself,  there  was  not  a  native- 
born  individual  in  the  court.  The  answer  was  characteris- 
tic of  the  cosmopolitan  character  of  lower  Is  ew  York,  very 
nearly  so  of  the  whole  of  it,  wherever  it  runs  to  alleys  and 
courts.  One  may  find  for  the  asking  an  Italian,  a  German, 
a  French,  African,  Spanish,  Bohemian,  Russian,  Scandina- 
vian, Jewish,  and  Chinese  colony.  Even  the  Arab,  who 
peddles  "  holy  earth  "  from  the  Battery  as  a  direct  importa- 
tion from  Jerusalem,  has  his  exclusive'  preserves  at  the 
lower  end  of  Washington  Street.  The  one  thing  you  shall 
vainly  ask  for  in  the  chief  city  of  America  is  a  distinctive- 
ly American  community.  There  is  none ;  certainly  not 
among  the  tenements.  Where  have  they  gone  to,  the  old 
inhabitants?  I  put  the  question  to  one  who  might  fairly 
be  presumed  to  be  of  the  number,  since  I  had  found  him 
sighing  for  the  "  good  old  days  "  when  the  legend  "  no 
Irish  need  apply"  was  familiar  in  the  advertising  columns 
of  the  newspapers.  He  looked  at  me  with  a  puzzled  air. 
"  I  don't  know,"  he  said.  "  I  wish  I  did.  Some  went  to 
California  in  '49,  some  to  flie  war  and  never  came  back. 


22 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


The  rest,  I  expect,  have  gone  to  heaven,  or  somewhere. 
I  don't  see  them  'round  here." 

Whatever  the  merit  of  the  good  man's  conjectures,  his 
eves  did  not  deceive  him.  They  are  not  here.  In  their 
place  has  come  this  queer  conglomerate  mass  of  heterogene- 
ous elements,  ever  striving  and  working  like  whiskey  and 
water  in  one  glass,  and  with  the  like  result :  final  union 
and  a  prevailing  taint  of  whiskey.  The  once  unwelcome 
Irishman  has  been  followed  in  his  turn  by  the  Italian,  the 
Russian  Jew,  and  the  Chinaman,  and  has  himself  taken  a 
hand  at  opposition,  quite  as  bitter  and  quite  as  ineffectual, 
against  these  later  hordes.  Wherever  these  have  gone 
they  have  crowded  him  out,  possessing  the  block,  the 
street,  the  ward  with  their  denser  swarms.  But  the  Irish- 
man's revenge  is  complete.  Victorious  in  defeat  over  his 
recent  as  over  his  more  ancient  foe,  the  one  who  opposed 
his  coming  no  less  than  the  one  who  drove  him  out,  he 
dictates  to  both  their  politics,  and,  secure  in  possession  of 
the  offices,  returns  the  native  his  greeting  with  interest, 
while  collecting  the  rents  of  the  Italian  whose  house  he 
has  bought  with  the  profits  of  his  saloon.  As  a  landlord 
he  is  picturesquely  autocratic.  An  amusing  instance  of  his 
methods  came  under  my  notice  while  writing  these  lines. 
An  inspector  of  the  Health  Department  found  an  Italian 
family  paying  a  man  with  a  Celtic  name  twenty-five 
dollars  a  month  xor  three  small  rooms  in  a  ramshackle 
rear  tenement — more  than  twice  what  they  were  worth 
— and  expressed  his  astonishment  to  the  tenant,  an  ig- 
norant Sicilian  laborer.  He  replied  that  he  had  once 
asked  the  landlord  to  reduce  the  rent,  but  he  would  not 
do  it. 

"  Well !    What  did  he  say  ?  "  asked  the  inspector. 

';  6  Damma,  man  ! '  he  said  ;  '  if  you  speaka  thata  way  to 


THE  MIXED  CROWD. 


23 


me,  I  fira  you  and  your  tilings  in  the  streeta.' "  And  the 
frightened  Italian  paid  the  rent. 

In  justice  to  the  Irish  landlord  it  must  be  said  that  like 
an  apt  pupil  he  was  merely  showing  forth  the  result  of 
the  schooling  he  had  received,  re-enacting,  in  his  own  way, 
the  scheme  of  the  tenements.  It  is  only  his  frankness  that 
shocks.  The  Irishman  does  not  naturally  take  kindly  to 
tenement  life,  though  with  characteristic  versatility  he 
adapts  himself  to  its  conditions  at  once.  It  does  viol- 
ence, nevertheless,  to  the  best  that  is  in  him,  and  for 
that  very  reason  of  all  who  come  within  its  sphere  soonest 
corrupts  him.  The  result  is  a  sediment,  the  product  of 
more  than  a  generation  in  the  city's  slums,  that,  as  distin- 
guished from  the  larger  body  of  his  class,  justly  ranks  at 
the  foot  of  tenement  dwellers,  the  so-called  "low  Irish/' 

It  is  not  to  be  assumed,  of  course,  that  the  whole  body 
of  the  population  living  in  the  tenements,  of  which  Xew 
Yorkers  are  in  the  habit  o£  speaking  vaguely  as  "  the 
poor,''  or  even  the  larger  part  of  it,  is  to  be  classed  as 
vicious  or  as  poor  in  the  sense  of  verging  on  beggary. 

New  York's  wage-earners  have  no  other  place  to  live, 
more  is  the  pity.  They  are  truly  poor  for  having  no  better 
homes  ;  waxing  poorer  in  purse  as  the  exorbitant  rents  to 
which  they  are  tied,  as  ever  was  serf  to  soil,  keep  rising. 
The  wonder  is  that  they  are  not  all  corrupted,  and  speedily, 
by  their  surroundings.  If,  on  the  contrary,  there  be  a 
steady  working  up,  if  not  out  of  the  slough,  the  fact  is  a 
powerful  argument  for  the  optimist's  belief  that  the 
world  is,  after  all,  growing  better,  not  worse,  and  would  go 
far  toward  disarming  apprehension,  were  it  not  for  the 
steadier  growth  of  the  sediment  of  the  slums  and  its  con- 
stant menace.  Such  an  impulse  toward  better  things  there 
certainly  is.    The  German  rag-picker  of  thirty  years  ago, 


24 


IIOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


quite  as  low  in  the  scale  as  his  Italian  successor,  is  the 
thrifty  tradesman  or  prosperous  farmer  of  to-day.* 

The  Italian  scavenger  of  our  time  is  fast  graduating 
into  exclusive  control  of  the  corner  fruit-stands,  while  his 
black-eyed  boy  monopolizes  the  boot-blacking  industry  in 
which  a  few  years  ago  he  was  an  intruder.  The  Irish 
hod-carrier  in  the  second  generation  has  become  a  brick- 
layer, if  not  the  Alderman  of  his  ward,  while  the  Chinese 
coolie  is  in  almost  exclusive  possession  of  the  laundry  bus- 
iness. The  reason  is  obvious.  The  poorest  immigrant 
comes  here  with  the  purpose  and  ambition  to  better  him- 
self and,  given  half  a  chance,  might  be  reasonably  expected 
to  make  the  most  of  it.  To  the  false  plea  that  he  prefers 
the  squalid  homes  in  which  his  kind  are  housed  there 
could  be  no  better  answer.  The  truth  is,  his  half  change 
has  too  Ions;  been  wanting,  and  for  the  bad  result  he  has 
been  unjustly  blamed. 

As  emigration  from  east  to  west  follows  the  latitude, 
so  does  the  foreign  influx  in  New  York  distribute  itself 
along  certain  well-defined  lines  that  waver  and  break  only 
under  the  stronger  pressure  of  a  more  gregarious  race  or 
the  encroachments  of  inexorable  business.  A  feeling  of 
dependence  upon  mutual  effort,  natural  to  strangers  in 
a  strange  land,  unacquainted  with  its  language  and  cus- 
toms, sufficiently  accounts  for  this. 

The  Irishman  is  the  true  cosmopolitan  immigrant.  All- 
pervading,  he  shares  his  lodging  with  perfect  impartiality 
with  the  Italian,  the  Greek,  and  the  "  Dutchman,"  yielding 

*  The  Sheriff  Street  Colony  of  rag-pickers,  long  since  gone,  is  an  in- 
stance in  point.  The  thrifty  Germans  saved  up  money  during  years  of 
hard  work  in  squalor  and  apparently  wretched  poverty  to  buy  a  town- 
ship in  a  Western  State,  and  the  whole  colony  moved  out  there  in  a 
body.    There  need  be  no  doubt  about  their  thriving  there. 


THE  MIXED  CROWD. 


25 


only  to  sheer  force  of  numbers,  and  objects  equally  to 
them  all.  A  map  of  the  city,  colored  to  designate  nation- 
alities, would  show  more  stripes  than  on  the  skin  of  a  ze- 
bra, and  more  colors  than  any  rainbow.  The  city  on  such 
a  map  would  fall  into  two  great  halves,  green  for  the  Irish 
prevailing  in  the  West  Side  tenement  districts,  and  blue 
for  the  Germans  on  the  East  Side.  But  intermingled  with 
these  ground  colors  would  be  an  odd  variety  of  tints  that 
would  give  the  whole  the  appearance  of  an  extraordinary 
crazy-quilt.  From  down  in  the  Sixth  Ward,  upon  the  site 
of  the  old  Collect  Pond  that  in  the  days  of  the  fathers 
drained  the  hills  which  are  no  more,  the  red  of  the  Italian 
would  be  seen  forcing  its  way  northward  along  the  line  of 
Mulberry  Street  to  the  quarter  of  the  French  purple  on 
Bleecker  Street  and  South  Fifth  Avenue,  to  lose  itself  and 
reappear,  after  a  lapse  of  miles,  in  the  "Little  Italy"  of 
Harlem,  east  of  Second  Avenue.  Dashes  of  red,  sharply 
defined,  weuld  be  seen  strung  through  the  Annexed  Dis- 
trict, northward  to  the  city  Kne.  On  the  West  Side  the 
red  would  be  seen  overrunning  the  old  Africa  of  Thomp- 
son Street,  pushing  the  black  of  the  negro  rapidly  up- 
town, against  querulous  but  unavailing  protests,  occupying 
his  home,  his  church,  his  trade  and  all,  with  merciless 
impartiality.  There  is  a  church  in  Mulberry  Street  that 
lias  stood  for  two  generations  as  a  sort  of  milestone  of 
these  migrations.  Built  originally  for  the  worship  of 
staid  New  Yorkers  of  the  "  old  stock,"  it  was  engulfed 
by  the  colored  tide,  when  the  draft-riots  drove  the  negroes 
out  of  reach  of  Cherry  Street  and  the  Five  Points.  With- 
in the  past  decade  the  advance  wave  of  the  Italian  onset 
reached  it,  and  to-day  the  arms  of  United  Italy  adorn  its 
front.  The  negroes  have  made  a  stand  at  several  points 
along  Seventh  and  Eighth  Avenues  ;  but  their  main  body. 


26 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALE  LIVES. 


still  pursued  by  the  Italian  foe,  is  on  the  march  yet,  and 
the  black  mark  will  be  found  overshadowing  to-day  many 
blocks  on  the  East  Side,  with  One  Hundredth  Street  as 
the  centre,  where  colonies  of  them  have  settled  recently. 

Hardly  less  aggressive  than  the  Italian,  the  Russian  and 
Polish  Jew,  having  overrun  the  district  between  Rivington 
and  Division  Streets,  east  of  the  Bowery,  to  the  point  of 
suffocation,  is  filling  the  tenements  of  the  old  Seventh 
Ward  to  the  river  front,  and  disputing  with  the  Italian 
every  foot  of  available  space  in  the  back  alleys  of  Mul- 
berry Street.  The  two  races,  differing  hopelessly  in 
much,  have  this  in  common :  they  carry  their  slums  with 
them  wherever  they  go,  if  allowed  to  do  it.  Little  Italy 
already  rivals  its  parent,  the  "  Bend,"  in  foulness.  Other 
nationalities  that  begin  at  the  bottom  make  a  fresh  starj 
when  crowded  up  the  ladder.  Happily  both  are  manage- 
able, the  one  by  rabbinical,  the  other  by  the  civil  law.  Be- 
tween the  dull  gray  of  the  Jew,  his  favorite  color,  and  the 
Italian  red,  would  be  seen  squeezed  in  on  the  map  a  sharp 
streak  of  yellow,  marking  the  narrow  boundaries  of  China- 
town. Dovetailed  in  with  the  German  population,  the  poor 
but  thrifty  Bohemian  might  be  picked  out  by  the  sombre 
hue  of  his  life  as  of  his  philosophy,  struggling  against 
heavy  odds  in  the  big  human  bee-hives  of  the  East  Side. 
Colonies  of  his  people  extend  northward,  with  long  lapses 
of  space,  from  below  the  Cooper  Institute  more  than 
three  miles.  The  Bohemian  is  the  only  foreigner  with 
any  considerable  representation  in  the  city  who  counts  no 
wealth}^  man  of  his  race,  none  who  has  not  to  work  hard 
for  a  living,  or  has  got  beyond  the  reach  of  the  tenement. 

Down  near  the  Battery  the  West  Side  emerald  would  be 
soiled  by  a  dirty  stain,  spreading  rapidly  like  a  splash  of 
ink  on  a  sheet  of  blotting  paper,  headquarters  of  the  Arab 


THE  MIXED  CROWD. 


27 


tribe,  that  in  a  single  year  has  swelled  from  the  original 

C        J  CD 

dozen  to  twelve  hundred,  intent,  every  mothers  son,  on 
trade  and  barter.  Dots  and  dashes  of  color  here  and  there 
would  show  where  the  Finnish  sailors  worship  their  dju- 
mala  (God),  the  Greek  pedlars  the  ancient  name  of  their 
race,  and  the  Swiss  the  goddess  of  thrift.  And  so  on  to 
the  end  of  the  long  register,  all  toiling  together  in  the 
galling  fetters  of  the  tenement.  Were  the  question  raised 
who  makes  the  most  of  life  thus  mortgaged,  who  resists 
most  stubbornly  its  levelling  tendency  —  knows  how  to 
drag  even  the  barracks  upward  a  part  of  the  way  at  least 
toward  the  ideal  plane  of  the  home — the  palm  must  be 
unhesitatingly  awarded  the  Teuton.  The  Italian  and  the 
poor  Jew  rise  only  by  compulsion.  The  Chinaman  does 
not  rise  at  all ;  here,  as  at  home,  he  simply  remains  sta- 
tionary. The  Irishman's  genius  rims  to  public  affairs 
rather  than  domestic  life  ;  wherever  he  is  mustered  in 
force  the  saloon  is  the  gorgeous  centre  of  political  activity. 
The  German  struggles  vainly  vto  learn  his  trick ;  his  Teu- 
tonic wit  is  too  heavy,  and  the  political  ladder  he  raises 
from  his  saloon  usually  too  short  or  too  clumsy  to  reach 
the  desired  goal.  The  best  part  of  his  life  is  lived  at 
home,  and  he  makes  himself  a  home  independent  of  the 
surroundings,  giving  the  lie  to  the  saying,  unhappily  be- 
come a  maxim  of  social  truth,  that  pauperism  and  drunk- 
enness naturally  grow  in  the  tenements.  He  makes  the 
most  of  his  tenement,  and  it  should  be  added  that  when- 
ever and  as  soon  as  he  can  save  up  money  enough,  he  gets 
out  and  never  crosses  the  threshold  of  one  again. 


CHAPTER  IY. 


THE  DOWN  TOWN  BACK-ALLEYS. 

DOWN  below  Chatham  Square,  in  the  old  Fourth 
Ward,  where  the  cradle  of  the  tenement  stood,  we 
shall  find  New  York's  Other  Half  at  home,  receiving  such 
as  care  to  call  and  are  not  afraid.  Not  all  of  it,  to  be  sure, 
there  is  not  room  for  that ;  but  a  fairly  representative 
gathering,  representative  of  its  earliest  and  worst  tradi- 
tions. There  is  nothing  to  be  afraid  of.  In  this  metropj- 
lis,  let  it  be  understood,  there  is  no  public  street  where  the 
stranger  may  not  go  safely  by  day  and  by  night,  provided 
lie  knows  how  to  mind  his  own  business  and  is  sober.  His 
coming  and  going  will  excite  little  interest,  unless  he  is 
suspected  of  being  a  truant  officer,  in  which  case  he  will 
be  impressed  v  itli  the  truth  of  the  observation  that  the 
American  stock  is  dying  out  for  want  of  children.  If  he 
escapes  this  suspicion  and  the  risk  of  trampling  upon,  or 
being  himself  run  down  by  the  bewildering  swarms  of 
youngsters  that  are  everywhere  or  nowhere  as  the  exi- 
gency and  their  quick  scent  of  danger  direct,  he  will  see 
no  reason  for  dissenting  from  that  observation.  Glimpses 
caught  of  the  parents  watching  the  youngsters  play  from 
windows  or  open  doorways  will  soon  convince  him  that 
the  native  stock  is  in  no  way  involved. 

Leaving  the  Elevated  Railroad  where  it  dives  under  the 
Brooklyn  Bridge  at  Franklin  Square,  scarce  a  dozen  steps 
will  take  us  where  we  wish  to  go.    With  its  rush  and 


THE  DOWN  TOWN  BACK- ALLEYS.  29 


roar  echoing  yet  in  our  ears,  we  have  turned  the  corner 
from  prosperity  to  poverty.  We  stand  upon  the  domain 
of  the  tenement.  In  the  shadow  of  the  great  stone  abut- 
ments the  old  Knickerbocker  houses  linger  like  ghosts  of 
a  departed  day.  Down  the  winding  slope  of  Cherry  Street 
— proud  and  fashionable  Cherry  Hill  that  was — their  broad 
steps,  sloping  roofs,  and  dormer  windows  are  easily  made 
out ;  all  the  more  easily  for  the  contrast  with  the  ugly  bar- 
rucks  that  elbow  them  right  and  left.  These  never  had 
other  design  than  to  shelter,  at  as  little  outlay  as  possible, 
the  greatest  crowds  out  of  which  rent  could  be  wrung. 
They  were  the  bad  after-thought  of  a  heedless  day.  The 
years  have  brought-  to  the  old  houses  unhonored  age,  a 
querulous  second  childhood  that  is  out  of  tune  with  the 
time,  their  tenants,  the  neighbors,  and  cries  out  against 
them  and  against  you  in  fretful  protest  in  every  step  on 
their  rotten  floors  or  squeaky  stairs.  Good  cause  have 
they  for  their  fretting.  This  one,  with  its  shabby  front 
and  poorly  patched  roof,  what  glowing  firesides,  what 
happy  children  may  it  once  have  owned  ?  Heavy  feet, 
too  often  with  unsteady  step,  for  the  pot-house  is  next 
door — where  is  it  not  next  door  in  these  slums  ? — have 
worn  away  the  brown  -  stone  steps  since  ;  the  broken 
columns  at  the  door  have  rotted  away  at  the  base.  Of 
the  handsome  cornice  barely  a  trace  is  left.  Dirt  and 
desolation  reign  in  the  wide  hallway,  and  danger  lurks 
on  the  stairs.  Rough  pine  boards  fence  off  the  roomy 
fire-places  —  where  coal  is  bought  by  the  pail  at  the 
rate  of  twelve  dollars  a  ton  these  have  no  place.  The 
arched  gateway  leads  no  longer  to  a  shady  bower  on  the 
banks  of  the  rushing  stream,  inviting  to  day-dreams  with 
its  gentle  repose,  but  to  a  dark  and  nameless  alley,  shut 
in  by  high  brick  walls,  cheerless  as  the  lives  of  those  they 


30 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


shelter.  The  wolf  knocks  loudly  at  the  gate  in  the  troubled 
dreams  that  come  to  this  alley,  echoes  of  the  day's  cares. 
A  horde  of  dirty  children  play  about  the  dripping  hy- 
drant, the  only  thing  in  the  alley  that  thinks  enough  of  its 


AT  THE  CRADLE  OF  THE  TENEMENT.— DOORWAY  OF  AN  OLD- FASHIONED  DWELLING 
ON  CHERRY  HILL. 

chance  to  make  the  most  of  it :  it  is  the  best  it  can  do. 
These  are  the  children  of  the  tenements,  the  growing 
generation  of  the  slums  ;  this  their  home.  From  the  great 
highway  overhead,  along  which  throbs  the  life  -  tide  of 


THE  DOWN  TOWN  BACK- ALLEYS. 


31 


two  great  cities,  one  might  drop  a  pebble  into  half  a  dozen 
such  alleys. 

One  yawns  just  across  the  street ;  not  very  broadly,  but 
it  is  not  to  blame.  The  builder  of  the  old  gateway  had 
no  thought  of  its  ever  becoming  a  public  thoroughfare. 
Once  inside  it  widens,  but  only  to  make  room  for  a  bio* 
box-like  building  with  the  worn  and  greasy  look  of  the 
slum  tenement  that  is  stamped  alike  on  the  houses  and 
their  tenants  down  here,  even  on  the  homeless  cur  that 
romps  with  the  children  in  yonder  building  lot,  with  an 
air  of  expectant  interest  plainly  betraying  the  forlorn  hope 
that  at  some  stage  of  the  game  a  meat-bone  may  show  up 
in  the  role  of  "It.''  Vain  hope,  truly  !  Nothing  more  ap- 
petizing than  a  bare-legged  ragamuffin  appears.  Meat- 
bones,  not  long-since  picked  clean,  are  as  scarce  in  Blind 
Man's  Alley  as  elbow-room  in  any  Fourth  Ward  back-yard. 
The  shouts  of  the  children  come  hushed  over  the  house- 
tops, as  if  apologizing  for  the  intrusion.  Few  glad  noises 
make  this  old  alley  ring.  Morning  and  evening  it  echoes 
with  the  gentle,  groping  tap  of  the  blind  mans  staff  as 
he  feels  his  way  to  the  street.  Blind  Man's  Alley  bears  its 
name  for  a  reason.  Until  little  more  than  a  year  ago  its 
dark  burrows  harbored  a  colony  of  blind  beggars,  tenants 
of  a  blind  landlord,  old  Daniel  Murphy,  whom  every  child 
in  the  ward  knows,  if  he  never  heard  of  the  President  of 
the  United  States.  "  Old  Dan  "  made  a  big  fortune — 
he  told  me  once  four  hundred  thousand  dollars — out  of 
his  alley  and  the  surrounding  tenements,  only  to  grow 
blind  himself  in  extreme  old  age,  sharing  in  the  end  the 
chief  hardship  of  the  wretched  beings  whose  lot  he  had 
stubbornly  refused  to  better  that  he  might  increase  his 
wealth.  Even  when  the  Board  of  Health  at  last  compelled 
him  to  repair  and  clean  up  the  worst  of  the  old  buildings, 


32 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


under  threat  of  driving  out  the  tenants  and  locking  the 
doors  behind  them,  the  work  was  accomplished  against 
the  old  man's  angry  protests.  He  appeared  in  person  be- 
fore the  Board  to  argue  his  case,  and  his  argument  was 
characteristic. 

"  I  have  made  my  will,"  he  said.  "  My  monument 
stands  waiting  for  me  in  Calvary.  I  stand  on  the  very 
brink  of  the  grave,  blind  and  helpless,  and  now  (here  the 
pathos  of  the  appeal  was  swept  under  in  a  burst  of  angry 
indignation)  do  you  want  me  to  build  and  get  skinned, 
skinned  ?  These  people  are  not  fit  to  live  in  a  nice  house. 
Let  them  go  where  they  can,  and  let  my  house  stand." 

In  spite  of  the  genuine  anguish  of  the  appeal,  it  was 
downright  amusing  to  find  that  his  anger  was  provoked 
less  by  the  anticipated  waste  of  luxury  on  his  tenants  th°n 
by  distrust  of  his  own  kind,  the  builder.  He  knew  intui- 
tively what  to  expect.  The  result  showed  that  Mr.  Mur- 
phy had  gauged  his  tenants  correctly.  The  cleaning  up 
process  apparently  destroyed  the  home-feeling  of  the  al- 
ley ;  many  of  the  blind  people  moved  away  and  did  not 
return.  Some  remained,  however,  and  the  name  has 
clung  to  the  place. 

Some  idea  of  what  is  meant  by  a  sanitary  "  cleaning 
up  "  in  these  slums  may  be  gained  from  the  account  of  a 
mishap  I  met  with  once,  in  taking  a  flash-light  picture  of 
a  group  of  blind  beggars  in  one  of  the  tenements  down 
here.  With  unpractised  hands  I  managed  to  set  fire  to 
the  house.  When  the  blinding  effect  of  the  flash  had 
passed  away  and  I  could  see  once  more,  I  discovered  that 
a  lot  of  paper  and  rags  that  hung  on  the  wall  were  ablaze. 
There  were  six  of  us,  five  blind  men  and  women  who 
knew  nothing  of  their  danger,  and  myself,  in  an  attic 
room  with  a  dozen  crooked,  rickety  stairs  between  us  and 


THE  DOWN  TOWN  BACK-ALLEYS. 


33 


the  street,  and  as  many  households  as  helpless  as  the  one 
whose  guest  I  was  all  about  us.  The  thought :  how  were 
they  ever  to  be  got  out  \  made  my  blood  run  cold  as  I  saw 
the  flames  creeping  up  the  wall,  and  my  first  impulse  was 
to  bolt  for  the  street  and  shout  for  help.  The  next  was 
to  smother  the  fire  myself,  and  I  did,  with  a  vast  deal  of 
trouble.  Afterward,  when  I  came  down  to  the  street  I 
told  a  friendly  policeman  of  my  trouble.  For  some  reason 
he  thought  it  rather  a  good  joke,  and  laughed  immoder- 
ately at  my  concern  lest  even  then  sparks  should  be  bur- 
rowing in  the  rotten  wall  that  might  yet  break  out  in 
flame  and  destroy  the  house  with  all  that  were  in  it.  He 
told  me  why,  when  he  found  time  to  draw  breath.  "Why, 
don't  you  know,"  he  said,  "  that  house  is  the  Dirty  Spoon  ? 
It  caught  fire  six  times  last  winter,  but  it  wouldn't  burn. 
The  dirt  was  so  thick  on  the  walls,  it  smothered  the  fire !  " 
Which,  if  true,  shows  that  water  and  dirt,  not  usually  held 
to  be  harmonious  elements,  work  together  for  the  good  of 
those  who  insure  houses.  v 

Sunless  and  joyless  though  it  be,  Blind  Man's  Alley  has 
that  which  its  compeers  of  the  slums  vainly  yearn  for.  It 
has  a  pay-day.  Once  a  year  sunlight  shines  into  the  lives 
of  its  forlorn  crew,  past  and  present.  In  'June,  when  the 
Superintendent  of  Out-door  Poor  distributes  the  twenty 
thousand  dollars  annually  allowed  the  poor  blind  by  the 
city,  in  half-hearted  recognition  of  its  failure  to  otherwise 
provide  for  them,  Blindman's  Alley  takes  a  day  off  and 
goes  to  "  see  "  Mr.  Blake.  That  night  it  is  noisy  with  un- 
wonted merriment.  There  is  scraping  of  squeaky  fiddles 
in  the  dark  rooms,  and  cracked  old  voices  sing  long-for- 
gotten songs.  Even  the  blind  landlord  rejoices,  for  much 
of  the  money  goes  into  his  coffers. 

From  their  perch  up  among  the  rafters  Mrs.  Gallagher's 


UPSTAIKS  IN  BLINL>MAN-S  ALLEY. 


THE  DOWX  TOWN  BACK-ALLEYS. 


35 


blind  boarders  might  bear,  did  they  listen,  the  tramp  of  the 
policeman  always  on  duty  in  Gotham  Court,  half  a  stone's 
throw  away.  His  beat,  though  it  takes  in  but  a  small 
portion  of  a  single  block,  is  quite  as  lively  as  most  larger 
patrol  rounds.  A  double  row  of  five-story  tenements, 
back  to  back  under  a  common  roof,  extending  back  from 
the  street  two  hundred  and  thirty-four  feet,  with  barred 
openings  in  the  dividing  wall,  so  that  the  tenants  may  see 
but  cannot  get  at  each  other  from  the  stairs,  makes  the 
"  court."  Alleys — one  wider  by  a  couple  of  feet  than  the 
other,  whence  the  distinction  Single  and  Double  Alley — 
skirt  the  barracks  on  either  side.  Such,  briefly,  is  the 
tenement  that  has  challenged  public  attention  more  than 
any  other  in  the  whole  city  and  tested  the  power  of  sani- 
tary law  and  rule  for  forty  years.  The  name  of  the  pile  is 
not  down  in  the  City  Directory,  but  in  the  public  records 
it  holds  an  unenviable  place.  It  was  here  the  mortality 
rose  during  the  last  great  cholera  epidemic  to  the  unpre- 
cedented rate  of  195  in  1,000  inhabitants.  In  its  worst 
days  a  full  thousand  could  not  be  packed  into  the  court, 
though  the  number  did  probably  not  fall  far  short  of  it. 
Even  now,  under  the  management  of  men  of  conscience, 
and  an  agent,  a  King's  Daughter,  whose  practical  energy, 
kindliness  and  good  sense  have  done  much  to  redeem  its 
foul  reputation,  the  swarms  it  shelters  would  make  more 
than  one  fair-sized  country  village.  The  mixed  character 
of  the  population,  by  this  time  about  equally  divided  be- 
tween the  Celtic  and  the  Italian  stock,  accounts  for  the 
iron  bars  and  the  policeman.  It  was  an  eminently  Irish 
suggestion  that  the  latter  was  to  be  credited  to  the  pres- 
ence of  two  German  families  in  the  court,  who  "  made 
trouble  all  the  time."  A  Chinaman  whom  I  questioned 
as  he  hurried  past  the  iron  gate*  of  the  alley,  put  the  mat- 


36 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


ter  in  a  different  light.  "  Lem  Ilish  velly  bad,"  he  said. 
Gotham  Court  has  been  the  entering  wedge  for  the  Italian 
element,  who  until  recently  had  not  attained  a  foothold 
in  the  Fourth  Ward,  but  are  now  trailing  across  Chatham 
Street  from  their  stronghold  in  "  the  Bend "  in  ever  in- 
creasing numbers,  seeking,  according  to  their  wont,  the 
lowest  level. 

It  is  curious  to  find  that  this  notorious  block,  whose 
name  was  so  long  synonymous  with  all  that  was  desper- 
ately bad,  was  originally  built  (in  1851)  by  a  benevolent 
Quaker  for  the  express  purpose  of  rescuing  the  poor 
people  from  the  dreadful  rookeries  they  were  then  living 
in.  How  long  it  continued  a  model  tenement  is  not  on 
record.  It  could  not  have  been  very  long,  for  already  in 
1862,  ten  years  after  it  was  finished,  a  sanitary  official 
counted  146  cases  of  sickness  in  the  court,  including  "  all 
kinds  of  infectious  disease,"  from  small-pox  down,  and  re- 
ported that  of  138  children  born  in  it  in  less  than  three 
years  61  had  died,  mostly  before  they  were  one  year  old. 
Seven  years  later  the  inspector  of  the  district  reported  to 
the  Board  of  Health  that  "  nearly  ten  per  cent,  of  the 
population  is  sent  to  the  public  hospitals  each  year." 
When  the  alley  was  finally  taken  in  hand  by  the  authori- 
ties, and,  as  a  first  step  toward  its  reclamation,  the  entire 
population  was  driven  out  by  the  police,  experience  dic- 
tated, as  one  of  the  first  improvements  to  be  made,  the  put- 
ting in  of  a  k:'nd  of  sewer-grating,  so  constructed,  as  the 
official  report  patiently  puts  it,  "  as  to  prevent  the  ingress 
of  persons  disposed  to  make  a  hiding-place  "  of  the  sewer 
and  the  cellars  into  which  they  opened.  The  fact  was 
that  the  big  vaulted  sewers  had  long  been  a  runway  for 
thieves — the  Swamp  Angels — who  through  them  easily  es- 
caped when  chased  by  the  police,  as  well  as  a  storehouse 


THE  DOWN  TOAVX  BACK-ALLEYS. 


37 


for  their  plunder.  The  sewers  are  there  to-day;  in  fact 
the  two  alleys  are  nothing  but  the  roofs  of  these  enormous 
tunnels  in  which  a  man  may  walk  upright  the  full  dis- 
tance of  the  block  and  into  the  Cherry  Street  sewer — if 
he  likes  the  fun  and  is  not  afraid  of  rats.  Could  their 
grimy  walls  speak,  the  big  canals  might  tell  many  a  start- 
ling tale.  But  they  are  silent  enough,  and  so  are  most  of 
those  whose  secrets  they  might  betray.  The  flood-gates 
connecting  with  the  Cherry  Street  main  are  closed  now, 
except  when  the  water  is  drained  off.  Then  there  were 
no  gates,  and  it  is  on  record  that  the  sewers  were  chosen 
as  a  short  cut  habitually  by  residents  of  the  court  whose 
business  lay  on  the  line  of  them,  near  a  manhole,  perhaps, 
in  Cherry  Street,  or  at  the  river  mouth  of  the  big  pipe 
when  it  was  clear  at  low  tide.  "Me  Jimmy,'' said  one 
wrinkled  old  dame,  who  looked  in  while  we  were  nosing 
about  under  Double  Alley,  "  he  used  to  go  to  his  work  along 
down  Cherry  Street  that  way  every  morning  and  come 
back  at  nignt."  The  associations  must  have  been  congenial. 
Probably  "  Jimmy  "  himself  fitted  into  the  landscape. 

Half-way  back  from  the  street  in  this  latter  alley  is  a 
tenement,  facing  the  main  building,  on  the  west  side  of  the 
way,  that  was  not  originally  part  of  the  Court  proper.  It 
stands  there  a  curious  monument  to  a  Quaker's  revenge, 
a  living  illustration  of  the  power  of  hate  to  perpetuate 
its  bitter  fruit  beyond  the  grave.  The  lot  upon  which 
it  is  built  was  the  property  of  John  Wood,  brother  of 
Silas,  the  builder  of  Gotham  Court.  He  sold  the  Cherry 
Street  front  to  a  man  who  built  upon  it  a  tenement  with 
entrance  only  from  the  street.  Mr.  Wood  afterward  quar- 
relled about  the  partition  line  with  his  neighbor,  Alder- 
man Mullins,  who  had  put  up  a  long  tenement  barrack  on 
his  lot  after  the  style  of  the  Court,  and  the  Alderman 


38 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


knocked  him  down.  Tradition  records  that  the  Quaker 
picked  himself  up  with  the  quiet  remark,  "  I  will  pay  thee 
for  that,  friend  Alderman,"  and  went  his  way.  His  man- 
ner of  paying  was  to  put  up  the  big  building  in  the  rear 
of  34  Cherry  Street  with  an  immense  blank  wall  right  in 
front  of  the  windows  of  Alderman  Mullins's  tenements, 
shutting  out  effectually  light  and  air  from  them.  But 
as  he  had  no  access  to  the  street  from  his  building  for 
many  years  it  could  not  be  let  or  used  for  anything,  and 
remained  vacant  until  it  passed  under  the  management 
of  the  Gotham  Court  property.  Mullins's  Court  is  there 
yet,  and  so  is  the  Quaker's  vengeful  wall  that  has  cursed 
the  lives  of  thousands  of  innocent  people  since.  At  its 
farther  end  the  alley  between  the  two  that  begins  inside 
the  Cherry  Street  tenement,  six  or  seven  feet  wide,  nar- 
rows down  to  less  than  two  feet.  It  is  barely  possible 
to  squeeze  through ;  but  few  care  to  do  it,  for  the  rift 
leads  to  the  jail  of  the  Oak  Street  police  station,  and 
therefore  is  not  popular  with  the  growing  youth  of  the 
district. 

There  is  crape  on  the  door  of  the  Alderman's  court  as 
we  pass  out,  and  upstairs  in  one  of  the  tenements  prepara- 
tions are  making  for  a  wake.  A  man  lies  dead  in  the  hos- 
pital who  was  cut  to  pieces  in  a  "  can  racket "  in  the  alley 
on  Sunday.  The  sway  of  the  excise  law  is  not  extended 
to  these  back  alleys.  It  would  matter  little  if  it  were. 
There  are  secret  by-ways,  and  some  it  is  not  held  worth 
while  to  keep  secret,  along  which  the  "  growler  "  wanders 
at  all  hours  and  all  seasons  unmolested.  It  climbed  the 
stairs  so  long  and  so  often  that  day  that  murder  resulted. 
It  is  nothing  unusual  on  Cherry  Street,  nothing  to  "  make 
a  fuss  "  about.  Not  a  week  before,  two  or  three  blocks  up 
the  street,  the  police  felt  called  upon  to  interfere  in  one  of 


THE  DOWX  TOWN  BACK-ALLEYS. 


39 


these  can  rackets  at  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  to  secure 
peace  for  the  neighborhood.  The  interference  took  the 
form  of  a  general  fusillade,  during  which  one  of  the  dis- 
turbers fell  off  the  roof  and  was  killed.  There  was  the 
usual  wake  and  nothing  more  was  heard  of  it.  What, 
indeed,  was  there  to  say  ? 

The  "  Rock  of  Ages  "  is  the  name  over  the  door  of  a 
low  saloon  that  blocks  the  entrance  to  another  alley,  if 
possible  more  forlorn  and  dreary  than  the  rest,  as  we  pass 
out  of  the  Alderman's  court.  It  sounds  like  a  jeer  from 
the  days,  happily  past,  when  the  "  wickedest  man  in  Xew 
York'-  lived  around  the  corner  a  little  way  and  boasted  of 
his  title.  One  cannot  take  many  steps  in  Cherry  Street 
without  encountering  some  relic  of  past  or  present  promi- 
nence in  the  ways  of  crime,  scarce  one  that  does  not  turn 
up  specimen  bricks  of  the  coming  thief.  The  Cherry 
Street  tough  is  all-pervading.  Ask  Superintendent  Mur- 
ray, who,  as  captain  of  the  Oak  Street  squad,  in  seven 
months  secured  convictions  for,  theft,  robbery,  and  murder 
aggregating  no  less  than  five  hundred  and  thirty  years 
of  penal  servitude,  and  he  will  tell  you  his  opinion  that 
the  Fourth  Ward,  even  in  the  last  twenty  years,  has 
turned  out  more  criminals  than  all  the'  rest  of  the  city 
together. 

But  though  the  "  Swamp  Angels  "  have  gone  to  their 
reward,  their  successors  carry  on  business  at  the  old  stand 
as  successfully,  if  not  as  boldly.  There  goes  one  who  was 
once  a  shining  light  in  thiefdom.  He  has  reformed  since, 
they  say.  The  policeman  on  the  corner,  who  is  addicted 
to  a  professional  unbelief  in  reform  of  any  kind,  will  tell 
you  that  wdiile  on  the  Island  once  he  sailed  away  on  a 
shutter,  paddling  along  until  he  was  picked  up  in  Hell 
Gate  by  a  schooner's  crew,  whom  he  persuaded  that  he 


40 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


was  a  fanatic  performing  some  sort  of  religions  penance 
by  his  singular  expedition.  Over  yonder,  Tweed,  the 
arch-thief,  worked  in  a  brush-shop  and  earned  an  honest 
living  before  he  took  to  politics.  As  we  stroll  from  one 
narrow  street  to  another  the  odd  contrast  between  the  low, 
old-looking  houses  in  front  and  the  towering  tenements  in 
the  back  yards  grows  even  more  striking,  perhaps  because 
we  expect  and  are  looking  for  it.  Xobody  who  was  not 
would  suspect  the  presence  of  the  rear  houses,  though 
they  have  been  there  long  enough.  Here  is  one  seven 
stories  high  behind  one  with  only  three  floors.  Take  a 
look  into  this  Roosevelt  Street  alley  ;  just  about  one  step 
wide,  with  a  five-story  house  on  one  side  that  gets  its  light 
and  air — God  help  us  for  pitiful  mockery  ! — from  this 
slit  between  brick  walls.  There  are  no  windows  in  the 
wall  on  the  other  side ;  it  is  perfectly  blank.  The  fire- 
escapes  of  the  long  tenement  fairly  touch  it ;  but  the  rays 
of  the  sun,  rising,  setting,  or  at  high  noon,  never  do.  It 
never  shone  into  the  alley  from  the  day  the  devil  planned 
and  man  built  it.  There  was  once  an  English  doctor  who 
experimented  with  the  sunlight  in  the  soldiers'  barracks, 
and  found  that  on  the  side  that  was  shut  off  altogether 
from  the  sun  the  mortality  was  one  hundred  per  cent, 
greater  than  on  the  light  side,  where  its  rays  had  free  ac- 
cess. But  then  soldiers  are  of  some  account,  have  a  fixed 
value,  if  not  a  very  high  one.  The  people  who  live  here 
have  not.  The  aorse  that  pulls  the  dirt-cart  one  of  these 
laborers  loads  and  unloads  is  of  ever  so  much  more  ac- 
count to  the  employer  of  his  labor  than  he  and  all  that 
belongs  to  him.  Ask  the  owner  ;  he  will  not  attempt  to 
deny  it,  if  the  horse  is  worth  anything.  The  man  too 
knows  it.  It  is  the  one  thought  that  occasionally  troubles 
the  owner  of  the  horse  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  prosperity, 


THE  DOWN  TOWN  BACK-ALLE1S. 


41 


built  of  and  upon  the  successful  assertion  of  the  truth 
that  all  men  are  created  equal. 

With  what  a  shock  did  the  story  of  yonder  Madison 
Street  alley  come  home  to  Xew  Yorkers  one  morning, 
eight  or  ten  years  ago,  when  a  fire  that  broke  out  after  the 
men  had  gone  to  their  work  swept  up  those  narrow  stairs 
and  burned  up  women  and  children  to  the  number  of  a 
full  half  score.  There  were  fire-escapes,  yes !  but  so 
placed  that  they  could  not  be  reached.  The  firemen  had 
to  look  twice  before  they  could  find  the  opening  that 
passes  for  a  thoroughfare  ;  a  stout  man  would  never  ven- 
ture in.  Some  wonderfully  heroic  rescues  were  made  at 
that  fire  by  people  living  in  the  adjoining  tenements. 
Danger  and  trouble — of  the  imminent  kind,  not  the  every- 
day sort  that  excites  neither  interest  nor  commiseration — 
run  even  this  common  clay  into  heroic  moulds  on  occa- 
sion ;  occasions  that  help  us  to  remember  that  the  gap 
that  separates  the  man  with  the  patched  coat  from  his 
wealthy  neighbor  is,  after  all,  perhaps  but  a  tenement.  Yet, 
what  a  gap  !  and  of  whose  making  ?  Here,  as  we  stroll 
along  Madison  Street,  workmen  are  busy  putting  the  fin- 
ishing touches  to  the  brown-stone  front  of  a  tall  new  ten- 
ement. This  one  will  probably  be  called  an  apartment 
house.  They  are  carving  satyrs'  heads  in  the  stone,  with 
a  crowd  of  gaping  youngsters  looking  on  in  admiring 
wonder.  [Next  door  are  two  other  tenements,  likewise 
with  brown-stone  fronts,  fair  to  look  at.  The  youngest  of 
the  children  in  the  group  is  not  too  young  to  remember 
how  their  army  of  tenants  was  turned  out  by  the  health 
ofiicers  because  the  houses  had  been  condemned  as  unfit 
for  human  beings  to  live  in.  The  owner  was  a  wealthy 
builder  who  "  stood  high  in  the  community."  Is  it  only 
in  our  fancy  that  the  sardonic  leer  on  the  stone  faces 


42 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


seems  to  list  that  way.?  Or  is  it  an  introspective  grin  ? 
We  will  not  ask  if  the  new  house  belongs  to  the  same 
builder.    He  too  may  have  reformed. 

We  have  crossed  the  boundary  of  the  Seventh  Ward. 
Penitentiary  Kow,  suggestive  name  for  a  block  of  Cherry 
Street  tenements,  is  behind  us.  Within  recent  days  it 
has  become  peopled  wholly  with  Hebrews,  the  overflow 
from  Jewtown  adjoining,  pedlars  and  tailors,  all  of  them. 
It  is  odd  to  read  this  legend  from  other  days  over  the 
door:  "No  pedlars  allowed  in  this  house."  These  thrifty 
people  are  not  only  crowding  into  the  tenements  of  this 
once  exclusive  district — they  are  buying  them.  The  Jew 
runs  to  real  estate  as  soon  as  he  can  save  up  enough  for  a 
deposit  to  clinch  the  bargain.  As  fast  as  the  old  houses 
are  torn  down,  towering  structures  go  up  in  their  place, 
and  Hebrews  are  found  to  be  the  builders.  Here  is  a 
whole  alley  nicknamed  after  the  intruder,  Jews'  Alley. 
But  abuse  and  ridicule  are  not  weapons  to  fight  the  Isra- 
elite with.  He  pockets  them  quietly  with  the  rent  and 
bides  his  time.  He  knows  from  experience,  both  sweet 
and  bitter,  that  all  things  come  to  those  who  wait,  includ- 
ing the  houses  and  lands  of  their  persecutors. 

Here  comes  a  pleasure  party,  as  gay  as  any  on  the  ave- 
nue, though  the  carry-all  is  an  ash-cart.  The  father  is  the 
driver  and  he  has  taken  his  brown-legged  boy  for  a  ride. 
How  proud  and  happy  they  both  look  up  there  on  their 
perch  !  The  qur2i*  old  building  they  have  halted  in  front 
of  is  "  The  Ship,"  famous  for  fifty  years  as  a  ramshackle 
tenement  filled  with  the  oddest  crowd.  Ino  one  knows  why 
it  is  called  "  The  Ship,"  though  there  is  a  tradition  that 
once  the  river  came  clear  up  here  to  Hamilton  Street,  and 
boats  were  moored  along-side  it.  More  likely  it  is  because 
it  is  as  bewildering  inside  as  a  crazy  old  ship,  with  its  ups 


THE  DOWN  TOWN  BACK-ALLEYS. 


43 


and  downs  of  ladders  parading  as  stairs,  and  its  unexpected 
pitfalls.  But  Hamilton  Street,  like  Water  Street,  is  not 
what  it  was.  The  missions  drove  from  the  latter  the 
worst  of  its  dives.  A  sailors'  mission  has  lately  made  its 
appearance  in  Hamilton  Street,  but  there  are  no  dives 
there,  nothing  worse  than  the  ubiquitous  saloon  and  tough 
tenements. 

Enough  of  them  everywhere.  Suppose  we  look  into 
one  ?  Ko.  —  Cherry  Street.  Be  a  little  careful,  please  ! 
The  hall  is  dark  and  you  might  stumble  over  the  chil- 
dren pitching  pennies  back  there.  Kot  that  it  would  hurt 
them  ;  kicks  and  cuffs  are  their  daily  diet.  They  have  lit- 
tle else.  Here  where  the  hall  turns  and  dives  into  utter 
darkness  is  a  step,  and  another,  another.  A  flight  of 
stairs.  You  can  feel  your  way,  if  you  cannot  see  it. 
Close  ?  Yes  !  What  would  you  have  ?  All  the  fresh  air 
that  ever  enters  these  stairs  comes  from  the  hall-door 
that  is  forever  slamming,  and  from  the  windows  of  dark 
bedrooms  that  in  turn  receive;  from  the  stairs  their  sole 
supply  of  the  elements  God  meant  to  be  free,  but  man 
deals  out  with  such  niggardly  hand.  That  was  a  woman 
filling  her  pail  by  the  hydrant  you  just  bumped  against. 
The  sinks  are  in  the  hallway,  that  all  the  tenants  may  have 
access — and  all  be  poisoned  alike  by  their  summer  stenches. 
Hear  the  pump  squeak  !  It  is  the  lullaby  of  tenement- 
house  babes.  In  summer,  when  a  thousand  thirsty  throats 
pant  for  a  cooling  drink  in  this  block,  it  is  worked  in  vain. 
But  the  saloon,  whose  open  door  you  passed  in  the  hall, 
is  always  there.  The  smell  of  it  has  followed  you  up. 
Here  is  a  door.  Listen  !  That  short  hacking  cough,  that 
tiny,  helpless  wail — what  do  they  mean  ?  They  mean 
that  the  soiled  bow  of  white  you  saw  on  the  door  down- 
stairs will  have  another  story  to  tell — Oh  !  a  sadly  famil- 


44 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


iar  story — before  the  day  is  at  an  end.  The  child  is  dying 
with  measles.  With  half  a  chance  it  might  have  lived ; 
but  it  had  none.    That  dark  bedroom  killed  it. 

"It  was  took  all  of  a  suddint,"  says  the  mother,  smooth- 
ing the  throbbing  little  body  with  trembling  hands.  There 
is  no  unkindness  in  the  rough  voice  of  the  man  in  the 
jumper,  who  sits  by  the  window  grimly  smoking  a  clay 
pipe,  with  the  little  life  ebbing  out  in  his  sight,  bitter  as 
his  words  sound :  "  Hush,  Mary  !  If  we  cannot  keep  the 
baby,  need  we  complain — such  as  we  ? " 

Such  as  we  !  What  if  the  words  ring  in  your  ears  as  we 
grope  our  way  up  the  stairs  and  down  from  floor  to  floor, 
listening  to  the  sounds  behind  the  closed  doors  —  some 
of  quarrelling,  some  of  coarse  songs,  more  of  profanity. 
They  are  true.  When  the  summer  heats  come  with  their 
suffering  they  have  meaning  more  terrible  than  words  can 
tell.  Come  over  here.  Step  carefully  over  this  baby — 
it  is  a  baby,  spite  of  its  rags  and  dirt — under  these  iron 
bridges  called  fire-escapes,  but  loaded  down,  despite  the 
incessant  watchfulness  of  the  firemen,  with  broken  house- 
hold goods,  with  wash-tubs  and  ban-els,  over  which  no 
man  could  climb  from  a  fire.  This  gap  between  dingy 
brick-walls  is  the  yard.  That  strip  of  smoke-colored  sky 
up  there  is  the  heaven  of  these  people.  Do  you  wonder 
the  name  does  not  attract  them  to  the  churches  ?  That 
baby's  parents  live  in  the  rear  tenement  here.  She  is  at 
least  as  clean  as  £fte  steps  we  are  now  climbing.  There 
are  plenty  of  houses  with  half  a  hundred  such  in.  The 
tenement  is  much  like  the  one  in  front  we  just  left,  only 
fouler,  closer,  darker — we  will  not  say  more  cheerless. 
The  word  is  a  mockery.  A  hundred  thousand  people  lived 
in  rear  tenements  in  New  York  last  year.  Here  is  a  room 
neater  than  the  rest.    The  woman,  a  stout  matron  with 


THE  DOWN  TOWN  BACK-ALLEYS. 


45 


hard  lines  of  care  in  her  face,  is  at  the  wash-tub.  "  I  try 
to  keep  the  childer  clean,"  she  says,  apologetically,  but 


AN  OLD  REAR-TENEMENT  EN  ROOSEVELT  STREET. 


with  a  hopeless  glance  around.  The  spice  of  hot  soap- 
suds is  added  to  the  air  already  tainted  with  the  smell  of 
boiling  cabbage,  of  rags  and  uncleanliness  all  about.  It 
makes  an  overpowering  compound.    It  is  Thursday,  but 


46 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


patched  linen  is  hung  upon  the  pulley-line  from  the  win- 
dow.  There  is  no  Monday  cleaning  in  the  tenements.  It 
is  wash-day  all  the  week  round,  for  a  change  of  clothing 
is  scarce  among  the  poor.  They  are  poverty's  honest 
badge,  these  perennial  lines  of  rags  hung  out  to  dry,  those 
that  are  not  the  washerwoman's  professional  shingle. 
The  true  line  to  be  drawn  between  pauperism  and  honest 
poverty  is  the  clothes-line.  With  it  begins  the  effort  to  be 
clean  that  is  the  first  and  the  best  evidence  of  a  desire  to 
be  honest. 

What  sort  of  an  answer,  think  you,  would  come  from 
these  tenements  to  the  question  "  Is  life  worth  living  ?  " 
were  they  heard  at  all  in  the  discussion  ?  It  may  be  that 
this,  cut  from  the  last  report  but  one  of  the  Association 
for  the  Improvement  of  the  Condition  of  the  Poor,  a  lo^g 
name  for  a  weary  task,  has  a  suggestion  of  it :  "  In  the 
depth  of  winter  the  attention  of  the  Association  was  called 
to  a  Protestant  family  living  in  a  garret  in  a  miserable 
tenement  in  Cherry  Street.  The  family's  condition  was 
most  deplorable.  The  man,  his  wife,  and  three  small 
children  shivenng  in  one  room  through  the  roof  of  which 
the  pitiless  winds  of  winter  whistled.  The  room  was  al- 
most barren  of  furniture  ;  the  parents  slept  on  the  floor,  the 
elder  children  in  boxes,  and  the  baby  was  swung  in  an  old 
shawl  attached  to  the  rafters  by  cords  by  way  of  a  ham- 
mock. The  father,  a  seaman,  had  been  obliged  to  give 
up  that  calling  because  he  was  in  consumption,  and  was 
unable  to  provide  either  bread  or  fire  for  his  little  ones." 

Perhaps  this  may  be  put  down  as  an  exceptional  case, 
but  one  that  came  to  my  notice  some  months  ago  in  a 
Seventh  Ward  tenement  was  typical  enough  to  escape 
that  reproach.  There  were  nine  in  the  family  :  husband, 
wife,  an  aged  grandmother,  and  six  children  ;  honest,  hard- 


THE  DOWN  TOWN  BACK-ALLEYS. 


47 


working  Germans,  scrupulously  neat,  but  poor.  All  nine 
lived  in  two  rooms,  one  about  ten  feet  square  that  served 
as  parlor,  bedroom,  and  eating-room,  the  other  a  small 
hall-room  made  into  a  kitchen.  The  rent  was  seven  dol- 
lars and  a  half  a  month,  more  than  a  week's  wages  for  the 
husband  and  father,  who  was  the  only  bread-winner  in  the 
family.  That  day  the  mother  had  thrown  herself  out  of 
the  window,  and  was  carried  up  from  the  street  dead. 
She  was  "  discouraged,"  said  some  of  the  other  women 
from  the  tenement,  who  had  come  in  to  look  after  the 
children  while  a  messenger  carried  the  news  to  the  father 
at  the  shop.  They  went  stolidly  about  their  task,  although 
they  were  evidently  not  without  feeling  for  the  dead  wom- 
an. No  doubt  she  was  wrong  in  not  taking  life  philo- 
sophically, as  did  the  four  families  a  city  missionary  found 
housekeeping  in  the  four  corners  of  one  room.  They  got 
alon^  well  enough  together  until  one  of  the  families  took 
a  boarder  an/1  made  trouble.  Philosophy,  according  to 
my  optimistic  friend,  naturally  inhabits  the  tenements. 
The  people  who  live  there  come  to  look  upon  death  in  a 
different  way  from  the  rest  of  us — do  not  take  it  as  hard. 
Tie  has  never  found  time  to  explain  how  the  fact  fits  into 
his  general  theory  that  life  is  not  unbearable  in  the  tene- 
ments. Unhappily  for  the  philosophy  of  the  slums,  it  is 
too  apt  to  be  of  the  kind  that  readily  recognizes  the  saloon, 
always  handy,  as  the  refuge  from  every  trouble,  and  shapes 
its  practice  according  to  the  discovery. 


CHAPTER  V. 


THE  ITALIAN  EN  NEW  YORK. 

CERTAINLY  a  picturesque,  if  not  very  tidy,  element 
has  been  added  to  the  population  in  the  "  assisted  " 
Italian  immigrant  who  claims  so  large  a  share  of  public 
attention,  partly  because  he  keeps  coming  at  such  a  tre- 
mendous rate,  but  chiefly  because  he  elects  to  stay  in 
New  York,  or  near  enough  for  it  to  serve  as  his  base  of 
operations,  and  here  promptly  reproduces  conditions  of 
destitution  and  disorder  which,  set  in  the  frame-work  of 
Mediterranean  exuberance,  are  the  delight  of  the  artist, 
but  in  a  matter-of-fact  American  community  become  its 
danger  and  reproach.  The  reproduction  is  made  easier  in 
New  York  because  he  finds  the  material  ready  to  hand  in 
the  worst  of  the  slum  tenements  ;  but  even  where  it  is  not 
he  soon  reduces  what  he  does  find  to  his  own  level,  if  allow- 
ed to  follow  his  natural  bent.*  The  Italian  comes  in  at  the 
bottom,  and  in  the  generation  that  came  over  the  sea  he 
stays  there.  In  the  slums  he  is  welcomed  as  a  tenant  who 
"  makes  less  trouble  "  than  the  contentious  Irishman  or 
the  order-loving  German,  that  is  to  say :  is  content  to  live 
in  a  pig-sty  and  submits  to  robbery  at  the  hands  of  the 
rent-collector  without  murmur.  Yet  this  very  tractability 
makes  of  him  in  good  hands,  when  firmly  and  intelligently 

*  The  process  can  be  observed  in  the  Italian  tenements  in  Harlem 
(Little  Italy),  •which,  since  their  occupation  by  these  people,  have  been 
gradually  sinking  to  the  slum  level. 


THE  ITALIAN  IX  NEW  YOEK. 


49 


managed,  a  really  desirable  tenant.  But  it  is  not  his  good 
fortune  often  to  fall  in  with  other  hospitality  upon  his 
coming  than  that  which  brought  him  here  for  its  own 
profit,  and  has  no  idea  of  letting  go  its  grip  upon  him  as 
long  as  there  is  a  cent  to  be  made  out  of  him. 

Recent  Congressional  inquiries  have  shown  the  nature  of 
the  u  assistance"  he  receives  from  greedy  steamship  agents 
and  "  bankers,"  who  persuade  him  by  false  promises  to 
mortgage  his  home,  his  few  belongings,  and  his  wages  for 
months  to  come  for  a  ticket  to  the  land  where  plenty  of 
work  is  to  be  had  at  princely  wages.  The  padrone — the 
"  banker,"  is  nothing  else — having  made  his  ten  per  cent, 
out  of  him  en  route,  receives  him  at  the  landing  and  turns 
him  to  double  account  as  a  wage-earner  and  a  rent-payer. 
In  each  of  these  roles  he  is  made  to  yield  a  profit  to  his 
unscrupulous  countryman,  whom  he  trusts  implicitly  with 
the  instinct  of  utter  helplessness.  The  man  is  so  ignorant 
that,  as  one  of  the  sharpers  who  prey  upon  him  put  it 
once,  it  "v>ould  be  downright  sinful  not  to  take  him  in." 
His  ignorance  and  unconquerable  suspicion  of  strangers 
dig  the  pit  into  which  he  falls.  He  not  only  knows  no 
word  of  English,  but  he  does  not  know  enough  to  learn. 
Rarely  only  can  he  write  his  own  language.  Unlike  the 
German,  who  begins  learning  English  the  day  he  lands  as 
a  matter  of  duty,  or  the  Polish  Jew,  who  takes  it  up  as 
soon  as  he  is  able  as  an  investment,  the  Italian  learns 
slowly,  if  at  all.  Even  his  boy,  born  here,  often  speaks 
his  native  tongue  indifferently.  He  is  forced,  therefore,  to 
have  constant  recourse  to  the  middle-man,  who  makes  him 
pay  handsomely  at  every  turn.  lie  hires  him  out  to  the 
railroad  contractor,  receiving  a  commission  from  the  em- 
ployer as  well  as  from  the  laborer,  and  repeats  the  perform- 
ance monthly,  or  as  often  as  he  can  have  him  dismissed. 


50 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


In  the  city  he  contracts  for  his  lodging,  subletting  to  him 
space  in  the  vilest  tenements  at  extortionate  rents,  and  sets 
an  example  that  does  not  lack  imitators.  The  "  princely 
wages"  have  vanished  with  his  coming,  and  in  their  place 
hardships  and  a  dollar  a  day,  beheft  with  the  padrone's 
merciless  mortgage,  confront  him.  Bred  to  even  worse 
fare,  he  takes  both  as  a  matter  of  course,  and,  applying  the 
maxim  that  it  is  not  what  one  makes  but  what  he  saves 
that  makes  him  rich,  manages  to  turn  the  very  dirt  of  the 
streets  into  a  hoard  of  gold,  with  which  he  either  returns 
to  his  Southern  home,  or  brings  over  his  family  to  join  in 
his  work  and  in  his  fortunes  the  next  season. 

The  discovery  was  made  by  earlier  explorers  that  there 
is  money  in  New  York's  ash-barrel,  but  it  was  left  to  the 
genius  of  the  padrone  to  develop  the  full  resources  of  the 
mine  that  has  become  the  exclusive  preserve  of  the  Italian 
immigrant.  Only  a  few  years  ago,  when  rag-picking  was 
carried  on  in  a  desultory  and  irresponsible  sort  of  way, 
the  city  hired  gangs  of  men  to  trim  the  ash-scows  before 
they  were  sent  out  to  sea.  The  trimming  consisted  in 
levelling  out  the  dirt  as  it  was  dumped  from  the  carts,  so 
that  the  scow  might  be  evenly  loaded.  The  men  were 
paid  a  dollar  and  a  half  a  day,  ^  kept  what  they  found 
that  was  worth  having,  and  allowed  the  swarms  of  Italians 
who  hung  about  the  dumps  to  do  the  heavy  work  for 
them,  letting  them  have  their  pick  of  the  loads  for  their 
trouble.  To-day  Italians  contract  for  the  work,  paying 
large  sums  to  be  permitted  to  do  it.  The  city  received 
not  less  than  $80,000  last  year  for  the  sale  of  this  privi- 
lege to  the  contractors,  who  in  addition  have  to  pay  gangs 
of  their  countrymen  for  sorting  out  the  bones,  rags,  tin 
cans  and  other  waste  that  are  found  in  the  ashes  and  form 
the  staples  of  their  trade  and  their  sources  of  revenue. 


52 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


The  effect  has  been  vastly  to  increase  the  power  of  the 
padrone,  or  his  ally,  the  contractor,  by  giving  him  exclu- 
sive control  of  the  one  industry  in  which  the  Italian  was 
formerly  an  independent  "  dealer,"  and  reducing  him  liter- 
ally to  the  plane  of  the  dump.  Whenever  the  back  of  the 
sanitary  police  is  turned,  he  will  make  his  home  in  the 
filthy  burrows  where  he  works  by  day,  sleeping  and  eat- 
ing his  meals  under  the  dump,  on  the  edge  of  slimy  depths 
and  amid  surroundings  full  of  unutterable  horror.  The 
city  did  not  bargain  to  house,  though  it  is  content  to 
board,  him  so  long  as  he  can  make  the  ash-barrels  yield  the 
food  to  keep  him  alive,  and  a  vigorous  campaign  is  car- 
ried on  at  intervals  against  these  unlicensed  dump  settle- 
ments ;  but  the  temptation  of  having  to  pay  no  rent  is  too 
strong,  and  they  are  driven  from  one  dump  only  to  find 
lodgement  under  another  a  few  blocks  farther  up  or  down 
the  river.  The  fiercest  warfare  is  waged  over  the  patron- 
age of  the  dumps  by  rival  factions  represented  by  oppos- 
ing contractors,  and  it  has  happened  that  the  defeated 
party  has  endeavored  to  capture  by  strategy  what  he 
failed  to  carry  by  assault.  It  augurs  unsuspected  adapta- 
bility in  the  Italian  to  our  system  of  self-government  that 
these  rivalries  have  more  than  once  been  suspected  of  be- 
ing behind  the  sharpening  of  city  ordinances,  that  were 
apparently  made  in  good  faith  to  prevent  meddling  with 
the  refuse  in  the  ash-barrels  or  in  transit. 

Did  the  Italian  always  adapt  himself  as  readily  to  the 
operation  of  the  civil  law  as  to  the  manipulation  of  polit- 
ical "pull"  on  occasion,  he  would  save  himself  a  good 
deal  of  unnecessary  trouble.  Ordinarily  he  is  easily  enough 
governed  by  authority — always  excepting  Sunday,  when  he 
settles  down  to  a  game  of  cards  and  lets  loose  all  his  bad 
passions.    Like  the  Chinese,  the  Italian  is  a  born  gambler. 


THE  ITALIAN  IN  NEW  TOEK. 


53 


His  soul  is  in  the  game  from  the  moment  the  cards  are  on 
the  table,  and  very  frequently  his  knife  is  in  it  too  before 
the  game  is  ended.  No  Sunday  has  passed  in  New  York 
since  "  the  Bend  "  became  a  suburb  of  Naples  without  one 
or  more  of  these  murderous  affrays  coming  to  the  notice 
of  the  police.  As  a  rule  that  happens  only  when  the  man 
the  game  went  against  is  either  dead  or  so  badly  wounded 
as  to  require  instant  surgical  help.  As  to  the  other,  unless 
he  be  caught  red-handed,  the  chances  that  the  police  will 
ever  get  him  are  slim  indeed.  The  wounded  man  can 
seldom  be  persuaded  to  betray  him.  He  wards  off  all  in- 
quiries with  a  wicked  "  I  fix  him  myself,"  and  there  the 
matter  rests  until  he  either  dies  or  recovers.  If  the  latter, 
the  community  hears  after  a  while  of  another  Italian 
affray,  a  man  stabbed  in  a  quarrel,  dead  or  dying,  and 
the  police  know  that  "  he  "  has  been  fixed,  and  the  ac- 
count squared. 

With  all  his  conspicuous  faults,  the  swarthy  Italian 
immigrant  has  his  redeeming  traits.  He  is  as  honest  as 
he  is  hot-headed.  There  are  no  Italian  burglars  in  the 
Rogues'  Gallery ;  the  ex-brigand  toils  peacefully  with 
pickaxe  and  shovel  on  American  ground.  His  boy  occa- 
sionally shows,  as  a  pick-pocket,  the  results,  of  his  training 
with  the  toughs  of  the  Sixth  Ward  slums.  The  only 
criminal  business  to  which  the  father  occasionally  lends 
his  hand,  outside  of  murder,  is  a  bunco  game,  of  which  his 
confiding  countrymen,  returning  with  their  hoard  to  their 
native  land,  are  the  victims.  The  women  are  faithful 
wives  and  devoted  mothers.  Their  vivid  and  picturesque 
costumes  lend  a  tinge  of  color  to  the  otherwise  dull  monot- 
ony  of  the  slums  they  inhabit.  The  Italian  is  gay,  light- 
hearted  and,  if  his  fur  is  not  stroked  the  wrong  way,  in- 
offensive as  a  child.    His  worst  offence  is  that  he  keeps 


54 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


the  stale-beer  dives.  Where  his  headquarters  is,  in  the 
Mulberry  Street  Bend,  these  vile  dens  nourish  and  gather 
about  them  all  the  wrecks,  the  utterly  wretched,  the  hope- 
lessly lost,  on  the  lowest  slope  of  depraved  humanity. 
And  out  of  their  misery  he  makes  a  profit. 


CHAPTER  YI. 


THE  BEXD. 


11/  HEBE  Mulberry  Street  crooks  like  an  elbow  within 
*  *  hail  of  the  old  depravity  of  the  Five  Points,  is 
"the  Bend,"  fonl  core  of  New  York's  slums.  Long  years 
ago  the  cows  coining  home  from  the  pasture  trod  a  path 
over  this  hill.  Echoes  of  tinkling  bells  linger  there  still, 
but  they  do  not  call  up  memories  of  green  meadows  and 
summer  fields  ;  they  proclaim  the  home-coming  of  the  rag- 
picker's cart.  In  the  memory  of  man  the  old  cow-path 
has  never  been  other  than  a  vast  human  pig-sty.  There 
is  but  one  "  Bend  "  in  the  world,  and  it  is  enough.  The 
city  authorities,  moved  by  the  angry  protests  of  ten  years 
of  sanitary  reform  effort,  have  decided  that  it  is  too  much 
and  must  come  down.  Another  Paradise  Park  will  take 
its  place  and  let  in  sunlight  and  air  to  work  such  transfor- 
mation as  at  the  Five  Points,  around  the  corner  of  the  next 
block.  Never  was  change  more  urgently  needed.  Around 
"the  Bend"  cluster  the  bulk  of  the  tenements  that  are 
stamped  as  altogether  bad,  even  by  the  optimists  of  the 
Health  Department.  Incessant  raids  cannot  keep  down 
the  crowds  that  make  them  their  home.  In  the  scores  of 
back  alleys,  of  stable  lanes  and  hidden  byways,  of  which 
the  rent  collector  alone  can  keep  track,  they  share  such 
shelter  as  the  ramshackle  structures  afford  with  every  kind 
of  abomination  rifled  from  the  dumps  and  ash-barrels  of 
the  city.    Here,  too,  shunning  the  light,  skulks  the  un- 


56 


HOVT  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


clean  beast  of  dishonest  idleness.  "  The  Bend "  is  the 
home  of  the  tramp  as  well  as  the  rag-picker. 

It  is  not  much  more  than  twenty  years  since  a  census 
of  "  the  Bend  "  district  returned  only  twenty-four  of  the 
six  hundred  and  nine  tenements  as  in  decent  condition. 
Three-fourths  of  the  population  of  the  "  Bloody  Sixth  " 
Ward  were  then  Irish.  The  army  of  tramps  that  grew  up 
after  the  disbandment  of  the  armies  in  the  field,  and  has 
kept  up  its  muster-roll,  together  with  the  in-rush  of  the 
Italian  tide,  have  ever  since  opposed  a  stubborn  barrier  to 
all  efforts  at  permanent  improvement.  The  more  that  has 
been  done,  the  less  it  has  seemed  to  accomplish  in  the 
way  of  real  relief,  until  it  has  at  last  become  clear  that 
nothing  short  of  entire  demolition  will  ever  prove  of  rad- 
ical benefit.  Corruption  could  not  have  chosen  ground 
for  its  stand  with  better  promise  of  success.  The  whole 
district  is  a  m  ,ze  of  narrow,  often  unsuspected  passage- 
ways— necessarily,  for  there  is  scarce  a  lot  that  has  not 
two,  three,  or  four  tenements  upon  it,  swarming  with 
unwholesome  crowds.  What  a  birds-eye  view  of  "  the 
Bend  "  would  be  like  is  a  matter  of  bewildering  conject- 
ure. Its  everyday  appearance,  as  seen  from  the  corner  of 
Bayard  Street  on  a  sunny  dav,  is  one  of  the  sights  of  Xew 
York. 

Bayard  Street  is  the  high  road  to  Jewtown  across  the 
Bowery,  picketed  from  end  to  end  with  the  outposts  of 
Israel.  Hebrew  faces,  Hebrew  signs,  and  incessant  chat- 
ter in  the  queer  lingo  that  passes  for  Hebrew  on  the  East 
Side  attend  the  curious  wanderer  to  the  very  corner  of 
Mulberry  Street.  But  the  moment  he  turns  the  corner 
the  scene  changes  abruptly.  Before  him  lies  spread  out 
what  might  better  be  the  market-place  in  some  town  in 
Southern  Italy  than  a  street  in  New  York — all  but  the 


THE  BEND. 


57 


houses ;  they  are  still  the  same  old  tenements  of  the  un- 
romantic  type.  But  for  once  they  do  not  make  the  fore- 
ground in  a  slum  picture  from  the  American  metropolis. 
The  interest  centres  not  in  them,  but  in  the  crowd  they 
shelter  only  when  the  street  is  not  preferable,  and  that 
with  the  Italian  is  only  when  it  rains  or  he  is  sick.  When 
the  sun  shines  the  entire  population  seeks  the  street,  car- 
rying on  its  household  work,  its  bargaining,  its  love-mak- 
ing on  street  or  sidewalk,  or  idling  there  when  it  has 
nothing  better  to  do,  with  the  reverse  of  the  impulse  that 
makes  the  Polish  Jew  coop  himself  up  in  his  den  with 
the  thermometer  at  stewing  heat.  Along  the  curb  wom- 
en  sit  in  rows,  young  and  old  alike  with  the  odd  head-cov- 
ering, pad  or  turban,  that  is  their  badge  of  servitude — 
her's  to  bear  the  burden  as  long  as  she  lives — haggling 
over  baskets  of  frowsy  weeds,  some  sort  of  salad  prob- 
baly,  stale  tomatoes,  and  oranges  not  above  suspicion.  Ash- 
barrels  serve  them  as  counters,  and  not  infrequently  does 
the  arrival  of  the  official  cart  en  route  for  the  dump  cause 
a  temporary  suspension  of  trade  until  the  barrels  have 
been  emptied  and  restored.  Hucksters  and  pedlars'  carts 
make  two  rows  of  booths  in  the  street  itself,  and  along  the 
houses  is  still  another — a  perpetual  market  doing  a  very 
lively  trade  in  its  own  queer  staples,  found  nowhere  on 
American  ground  save  in  "  the  Bend."  Two  old  hags, 
camping  on  the  pavement,  are  dispensing  stale  bread, 
baked  not  in  loaves,  but  in  the  shape  of  big  wreaths  like 
exaggerated  crullers,  out  of  bags  of  dirty  bed-tick.  There 
is  no  use  disguising  the  fact :  they  look  like  and  they  prob- 
ably are  old  mattresses  mustered  into  service  under  the 
pressure  of  a  rush  of  trade.  Stale  bread  was  the  one  ar- 
ticle the  health  officers,  after  a  raid  on  the  market,  once  re- 
ported as  "  not  unwholesome."    It  was  only  disgusting. 


58 


HO  AY  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


Here  is  a  brawny  butcher,  sleeves  rolled  up  above  the  el- 
bows and  clay  pipe  in  mouth,  skinning  a  kid  that  hangs 
from  his  hook.  They  will  tell  you  with  a  laugh  at  the 
Elizabeth  Street  police  station  that  only  a  few  days  ago 
when  a  dead  goat  had  been  reported  lying  in  Pell  Street 
it  was  mysteriously  missing  by  the  time  the  offal-cart  came 
to  take  it  away.  It  turned  out  that  an  Italian  had  carried 
it  off  in  his  sack  to  a  wake  or  feast  of  some  sort  in  one  of 
the  back  alleys. 

On  either  side  of  the  narrow  entrance  to  Bandit's  Roost, 
one  of  the  most  notorious  of  these,  is  a  shop  that  is  a  fair 
sample  of  the  sort  of  invention  necessity  is  the  mother  of 
in  "  the  Bend.''  It  is  not  enough  that,  trucks  and  ash-bar- 
rels have  provided  four  distinct  lines  of  shops  that  are 
not  down  on  the  insurance  maps,  to  accommodate  the 
crowds.  Here  have  the  very  hallways  been  made  into 
shops.  Three  feet  wide  by  four  deep,  they  have  just 
room  for  one,  the  shop-keeper,  who,  himself  within,  does 
his  business  outside,  his  wares  displayed  on  a  board  hung 
across  what  was  once  the  hall  door.  Back  of  the  rear 
wall  of  this  unique  shop  a  hole  has  been  punched  from 
the  hall  into  tne  alley  and  the  tenants  go  that  way.  One 
of  the  shops  is  a  "  tobacco  bureau,"  presided  over  by  an 
unknown  saint,  done  in  yellow  and  red — there  is  not  a 
shop,  a  stand,  or  an  ash-barrel  doing  duty  for  a  counter, 
that  has  not  its  patron  saint — the  other  is  a  fish-stand  full 
of  slimy,  odd-looking  creatures,  fish  that  never  swam  in 
American  waters,  or  if  they  did,  were  never  seen  on  an 
American  fish-stand,  and  snails.  Big,  awkward  sausages, 
anything  but  appetizing,  hang  in  the  grocer's  doorway, 
knocking  against  the  customer's  head  as  if  to  remind  him 
that  they  are  there  waiting  to  be  bought.  AVhat  they  are 
I  never  had  the  courage  to  ask.    Down  the  street  comes 


60 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


a  file  of  women  carrying  enormous  bundles  of  fire-wood 
on  their  heads,  loads  of  decaying  vegetables  from  the 
market  wagons  in  their  aprons,  and  each  a  baby  at  the 
breast  supported  by  a  sort  of  sling  that  prevents  it  from 
tumbling  down.  The  women  do  all  the  carrying,  all  the 
work  one  sees  going  on  in  "  the  Bend."  The  men  sit  or 
stand  in  the  streets,  on  trucks,  or  in  the  open  doors  of  the 
saloons  smoking  black  clay  pipes,  talking  and  gesticulat- 
ing as  if  forever  on  the  point  of  coming  to  blows.  Near 
a  particularly  boisterous  group,  a  really  pretty  girl  with  a 
string  of  amber  beads  twisted  artlessly  in  the  knot  of  her 
raven  hair  has  been  bargaining  long  and  earnestly  with 
an  old  granny,  who  presides  over  a  wheel-barrow  load  of 
second-hand  stockings  and  faded  cotton  yarn,  industri- 
ously darning  the  biggest  holes  while  she  extols  the  vir- 
tues of  her  stock.  One  of  the  rude  swains,  with  patched 
overalls  tucked  into  his  boots,  to  whom  the  girl's  eyes 
have  strayed  more  than  once,  steps  up  and  gallantly  of- 
fers to  pick  her  out  the  handsomest  pair,  whereat  she 
laughs  and  pushes  him  away  with  a  gesture  which  he  in- 
terprets as  an  invitation  to  stay ;  and  he  does,  evidently 
to  the  satisfaction  of  the  beldame,  who  forthwith  raises 
her  prices  fifty  per  cent,  without  being  detected  by  the 
girl. 

Red  bandannas  and  yellow  kerchiefs  are  everywhere ; 
so  is  the  Italian  tongue,  infinitely  sweeter  than  the  harsh 
gutturals  of  the  Russian  Jew  around  the  corner.  So  are 
the  "  ristorantes  "  of  innumerable  Pasquales  ;  half  of  the 
people  in  "  the  Bend"  are  christened  Pasquale,  or  get  the 
name  in  some  other  way.  When  the  police  do  not  know 
the  name  of  an  escaped  murderer,  they  guess  at  Pasquale 
and  send  the  name  out  on  alarm ;  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten 
it  fits.    So  are  the  "  banks  "  that  hang  out  their  shingle 


THE  BEND. 


61 


as  tempting  bait  on  every  hand.  There  are  half  a  dozen 
in  the  single  block,  steamship  agencies,  employment  of- 
fices, and  savings-banks,  all  in  one.  So  are  the  toddling 
youngsters,  bow-legged  half  of  them,  and  so  are  no  end  of 
mothers,  present  and  prospective,  some  of  them  scarce  yet 
in  their  teens.  Those  who  are  not  in  the  street  are  hang- 
ing half  way  out  of  the  windows,  shouting  at  some  one 
below.  All  "  the  Bend "  must  be,  if  not  altogether,  at 
least  half  out  of  doors  when  the  sun  shines. 

In  the  street,  where  the  city  wields  the  broom,  there  is 
at  least  an  effort  at  cleaning  up.  There  has  to  be,  or  it 
would  be  swamped  in  filth  overrunning  from  the  courts 
and  alleys  where  the  rag-pickers  live.  It  requires  more 
than  ordinary  courage  to  explore  these  on  a  hot  day.  The 
undertaker  has  to  do  it  then,  the  police  always.  Right 
here,  in  this  tenement  on  the  east  side  of  the  street,  they 
found  little  Antonia  Candia,  victim  of  fiendish  cruelty, 
"  covered,"  says  the  account  found  in  the  records  of  the 
Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Children,  "  with 
sores,  and  her  hair  matted  with  dried  blood."  Abuse  is 
the  normal  condition  of  "  the  Bend,"  murder  its  everyday 
crop,  with  the  tenants  not  always  the  criminals.  In  this 
block  between  Bayard,  Park,  Mulberry,  and  Baxter  Streets, 
"  the  Bend  "  proper,  the  late  Tenement  House  Commission 
counted  155  deaths  of  children  *  in  a  specimen  year  (1882). 
Their  per  centage  of  the  total  mortality  in  the  block  was 
68.28,  while  for  the  whole  city  the  proportion  was  only 
46.20.  The  infant  mortality  in  any  city  or  place  as  com- 
pared with  the  whole  number  of  deaths  is  justly  consid- 
ered a  good  barometer  of  its  general  sanitary  condition. 

*  The  term  child  means  in  the  mortality  tables  a  person  under  five 
years  of  age.  Children  five  years  old  and  over  figure  in  the  tables  as 
adults. 


62 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALE  LIVES. 


Here,  in  this  tenement,  No.  59J,  next  to  Bandits'  Roost, 
fourteen  persons  died  that  year,  and  eleven  of  them  were 
children  ;  in  No.  61  eleven,  and  eight  of  them  not  jet  five 
years  old.  According  to  the  records  in  the  Bureau  of 
Yital  Statistics  only  thirty-nine  people  lived  in  No.  59J  in 
the  year  1888,  nine  of  them  little  children.  There  were 
five  baby  funerals  in  that  house  the  same  year.  Out  of 
the  alley  itself,  No.  59,  nine  dead  were  carried  in  1S88, 
five  in  baby  coffins.  Here  is  the  record  of  the  year  for 
the  whole  block,  as  furnished  by  the  Registrar  of  Vital 
Statistics,  Dr.  Roger  S.  Tracy  : 


Deaths  and  Death-rates  in  1888  in  Baxter  and  Mulberry  Streets,  between 
Park  and  Bayard  Streets. 


Population. 

Death -j. 

DfcATH-RATE. 

P 

CD 

D 

Five  yeai 
old  an 
over. 

Under  fi\ 
years. 

Total. 

Five  yea: 
old  an 
over. 

Under  fi\ 
years. 

Totr.l. 

Five  yea 
old  ai 
over. 

Under  fi1 
years. 

a 

a 

o 

O 

Baxter  Street  

Mulberry  Street  . . . 

1.918 

2,788 

315 
629 

2.233 
3,417 

26 
44 

46 

S6 

72 
130 

13.56 
15.78 

146.02 
136.70 

32.24 
38.05 

Total  

4,700 

944 

5,650 

70 

132 

202 

14.87 

139.83 

35.75 

The  general  death-rate  for  the  whole  city  that  year  was 
26.27. 

These  figures  speak  for  themselves,  when  it  is  shown 
that  in  the  model  tenement  across  the  way  at  Nos.  48 
and  50,  where  the  same  class  of  people  live  in  greater 
swarms  (161,  according  to  the  record),  but  under  good 
management,  and  in  decent  quarters,  the  hearse  called 
that  year  only  twice,  once  for  a  bab}r.  The  agent  of  the 
Christian  people  who  built  that  tenement  will  tell  you 
that  Italians  are  good  tenants,  while  the  owner  of  the 


BANDITS'  EOOST. 


64 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


alley  will  oppose  every  order  to  put  his  property  in  repair 
with  the  claim  that  they  are  the  worst  of  a  bad  lot. 
Both  are  right,  from  their  different  stand-points.  It  is 
the  stand-point  that  makes  the  difference — and  the  tenant. 

What  if  I  were  to  tell  you  that  this  alley,  and  more 
tenement  property  in  "  the  Bend,"  all  of  it  notorious  for 
years  as  the  vilest  and  worst  to  be  found  anywhere,  stood 
associated  on  the  tax-books  all  through  the  long  struggle  to 
make  its  owners  responsible,  which  has  at  last  resulted 
in  a  qualified  victory  for  the  law,  with  the  name  of  an 
honored  family,  one  of  the  "  oldest  and  best,"  rich  in 
possessions  and  in  influence,  and  high  in  the  councils  of 
the  city's  government  ?  It  would  be  but  the  plain  truth. 
Nor  would  it  be  the  only  instance  by  very  many  that 
stand  recorded  on  the  Health  Department's  books  of  a 
kind  that  has  come  near  to  making  the  name  of  landlord 
as  odious  in  New  York  as  it  has  become  in  Ireland. 

Bottle  Alley  is  around  the  corner  in  Baxter  Street ;  but 
it  is  a  fair  specimen  of  its  kind,  wherever  found.  Look 
into  any  of  these  houses,  everywhere  the  same  piles  of 
rags,  of  malodorous  bones  and  musty  paper,  all  of  which 
the  sanitary  police  flatter  themselves  they  have  banished 
to  the  dumps  and  the  warehouses.  Here  is  a  "  flat "  of 
"  parlor"  and  two  pitch-dark  coops  called  bedrooms. 
Truly,  the  bed  is  all  there  is  room  for.  The  family  tea- 
kettle is  on  the  stove,  doing  duty  for  the  time  being  as  a 
wash-boiler.  By  night  it  will  have  returned  to  its  proper 
use  again,  a  practical  illustration  of  how  poverty  in  "the 
Bend"  makes  both  ends  meet.  One,  two,  three  beds  are 
there,  if  the  old  boxes  and  heaps  of  foul  straw  can  be 
called  by  that  name  ;  a  broken  stove  with  crazy  pipe  from 
which  the  smoke  leaks  at  every  joint,  a  table  of  rough 
boards  propped  up  on  boxes,  piles  of  rubbish  in  the  corner. 


THE  BEND. 


65 


The  closeness  and  smell  are  appalling.  How  many  people 
sleep  here  ?  The  woman  with  the  red  bandanna  shakes 
her  head  sullenly,  but  the  bare-legged  girl  with  the  bright 
face  counts  on  her  fingers — five,  six  ! 

"  Six,  sir  !  "    Six  grown  people  and  five  children. 

"  Only  five,"  she  says  with  a  smile,  swathing  the  little 
one  on  her  lap  in  its  cruel  bandage.  There  is  another  in 
the  cradle — actually  a  cradle.    And  how  much  the  rent  ? 

Nine  and  a  half,  and  "  please,  sir !  he  won't  put  the 
paper  on." 

"  He  "  is  the  landlord.  The  "  paper  "  hangs  in  musty 
shreds  on  the  wall. 

Well  do  I  recollect  the  visit  of  a  health  inspector  to  one 
of  these  tenements  on  a  July  day  when  the  thermometer 
outside  was  climbing  high  in  the  nineties  ;  but  inside,  in 
that  awful  room,  with  half  a  dozen  persons  washing,  cook- 
ing, and  sorting  rags,  lay  the  dying  baby  alongside  the 
stove,  where  the  doctor's  thermometer  ran  up  to  115°  ! 
Perishing  for  the  want  of  a  breath  of  fresh  air  in  this  city 
of  untold  charities  !  Did  not  the  manager  of  the  Fresh 
Air  Fund  write  to  the  pastor  of  an  Italian  Church  only 
last  year  *  that  "  no  one  asked  for  Italian  children,"  and 
hence  he  could  not  send  any  to  the  country  ? 

Half  a  dozen  blocks  up  Mulberry  Street  -  there  is  a  rag- 
picker's settlement,  a  sort  of  overflow  from  "the  Bend," 
that  exists  to-day  in  all  its  pristine  nastiness.  Something 
like  forty  families  are  packed  into  five  old  two-story  and 
attic  houses  that  were  built  to  hold  five,  and  out  in  the 
yards  additional  crowds  are,  or  were  until  very  recently, 
accommodated  in  sheds  built  of  all  sorts  of  old  boards  and 
used  as  drying  racks  for  the  Italian  tenants'  "  stock."  I 
found  them  empty  when  I  visited  the  settlement  while 

*  See  City  Mission  Report,  February,  1890,  page  77. 


66  HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


writing  this.  The  last  two  tenants  had  just  left.  Their 
fate  was  characteristic.  The  "  old  man,*'  who  lived  in 
the  corner  coop,  with  barely  room  to  crouch  beside  the 


BOTTLE  ALLEY. 


stove — there  would  not  have  been  room  for  him  to  sleep 
had  not  age  crooked  his  frame  to  fit  his  house — had  been 
taken  to  the  "  crazy-house,"  and  the  woman  who  was  his 


THE  BEND. 


67 


neighbor  and  had  lived  in  her  shed  for  years  had  simply 
disappeared.  The  agent  and  the  other  tenants  "guessed,51 
doubtless  correctly,  that  she  might  be  found  on  the  "  isl- 
and," but  she  was  decrepit  anyhow  from  rheumatism,  and 
"  not  much  good,"  and  no  one  took  the  trouble  to  inquire 
for  her.  They  had  all  they  could  do  attending  to  their 
own  business  and  raising  the  rent.  Xo  wonder ;  I  found 
that  for  one  front  room  and  two  "  bedrooms "  in  the 
shameful  old  wrecks  of  buildings  the  tenant  was  paying 
$10  a  month,  for  the  back-room  and  one  bedroom  $9, 
and  for  the  attic  rooms,  according  to  size,  from  $3.75  to 
§5.50. 

There  is  a  standing  quarrel  between  the  professional — I 
mean  now  the  official — sanitarian  and  the  unsalaried  agi- 
tator for  sanitary  reform  over  the  question  of  overcrowd- 
ed tenements.  The  one  puts  the  number  a  little  vaguely 
at  four  or  five  hundred,  while  the  other  asserts  that  there 
are  thirty-two  thousand,  the  whole  number  of  houses 
classed  as  tenements  at  the  census  of  two  years  ago,  taking 
no  account  of  the  better  kind  of  flats.  It  depends  on  the 
angle  from  which  one  sees  it  which  is  right.  At  best  the 
term  overcrowding  is  a  relative  one,  and  the  scale  of  offi- 
cial measurement  conveniently  sliding.  Under  the  press- 
ure of  the  Italian  influx  the  standard  of  breathing  space 
required  for  an  adult  by  the  health  officers  has  been  cut 
down  from  six  to  four  hundred  cubic  feet.  The  "needs 
of  the  situation  "  is  their  plea,  and  no  more  perfect  argu- 
ment could  be  advanced  for  the  reformer's  position. 

It  is  in  "  the  Bend  "  the  sanitary  policeman  locates  the 
bulk  of  his  four  hundred,  and  the  sanitary  reformer  gives 
up  the  task  in  despair.  Of  its  vast  homeless  crowds  the 
census  takes  no  account.  It  is  their  instinct  to  shun  the 
light,  and  they  cannot  be  corralled  in  one  place  long 


68 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


enough  to  be  counted.  But  the  houses  can,  and  the  last 
count  showed  that  in  "  the  Bend  "  district,  between  Broad- 
way and  the  Bowery  and  Canal  and  Chatham  Streets,  in 
a  total  of  four  thousand  three  hundred  and  sixty-seven 
"apartments"  only  nine  were  for  the  moment  vacant, 
while  in  the  old  "  Africa,"  west  of  Broadway,  that  receives 
the  overflow  from  Mulberry  Street  and  is  rapidly  chang- 
ing its  character,  the  notice  "  standing  room  only  "  is  up. 
Not  a  single  vacant  room  was  found  there.  Nearly  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  "lodgers"  were  driven  out  of  two  adjoining 
Mulberry  Street  tenements,  one  of  them  aptly  named  "  the 
House  of  Blazes,"  during  that  census.  What  squalor  and 
degradation  inhabit  these  dens  the  health  officers  know. 
Through  the  long  summer  days  their  carts  patrol  "  the 
Bend,"  scattering  disinfectants  in  streets  and  lanes,  in 
sinks  and  cellars,  and  hidden  hovels  where  the  tramp  bur- 
rows. From  midnight  till  far  into  the  small  hours  of 
the  morning  the  policeman's  thundering  rap  on  closed 
doors  is  heard,  with  his  stern  command,  6i  Apri  jport'1 !  " 
on  his  rounds  gathering  evidence  of  illegal  overcrowding. 
The  doors  are  opened  unwillingly  enough — but  the  order 
means  business,  and  the  tenant  knows  it  even  if  he  under- 
stands no  word  of  English — upon  such  scenes  as  the  one 
presented  in  the  picture.  It  was  photographed  by  flash- 
light on  just  such  a  visit.  In  a  room  not  thirteen  feet 
either  way  slept  twelve  men  and  women,  two  or  three 
in  bunks  set  in  a  sort  of  alcove,  the  rest  on  the  floor. 
A  kerosene  lamp  burned  dimly  in  the  fearful  atmos- 
phere, probably  to  guide  other  and  later  arrivals  to  their 
"  beds,"  for  it  was  only  just  past  midnight.  A  baby's  fret- 
ful wail  came  from  an  adjoining  hall-room,  where,  in  the 
semi-darkness,  three  recumbent  figures  could  be  made 
out.    The  "  apartment "  was  one  of  three  in  two  adjoining 


70 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


buildings  we  had  found,  within  half  an  hour,  similarly 
crowded.  Most  of  the  men  were  lodgers,  who  slept  there 
for  five  cents  a  spot. 

Another  room  on  the  top  floor,  that  had  been  examined 
a  few  nights  before,  was  comparatively  empty.  There 
were  only  four  persons  in  it,  two  men,  an  old  woman,  and 
a  young  girl.  The  landlord  opened  the  door  with  alacri- 
ty, and  exhibited  with  a  proud  sweep  of  his  hand  the  sac- 
rifice he  had  made  of  his  personal  interests  to  satisfy  the 
law.  Our  visit  had  been  anticipated.  The  policeman's 
back  was  probably  no  sooner  turned  than  the  room  was  re- 
opened for  business. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

A  RAID  OX  THE  STALE-BEER  DIVES. 

MIDXIGHT  roll-call  was  over  in  the  Elizabeth  Street 
police-station,  but  the  reserves  were  held  under 
orders.  A  raid  was  on  foot,  but  whether  on  the  Chinese 
fan-tan  games,  on  the  opium  joints  of  Mott  and  Pell 
Streets,  or  on  dens  of  even  worse  character,  wras  a  matter 
of  guess-work  in  the  men's  room.  AVhen  the  last  patrol- 
man had  come  in  from  his  beat,  all  doubt  was  dispelled  by 
the  brief  order  "  To  the  Bend  !  "  The  stale-beer  dives 
were  the  object  of  the  raid.  The  policemen  buckled  their 
belts  tighter,  and  with  expressive  grunts  of  disgust  took  up 
their  march  toward  Mulberry  Street.  Past  the  heathen 
temples  of  "Mott  Street — there  was  some  fun  to  be  gotten 
out  of  a  raid  there — they  trooped,  into  "  the  Bend,"  send- 
ing here  and  there  a  belated  tramp  scurrying  in  fright  tow- 
ard healthier  quarters,  and  halted  at  the  mouth  of  one  of 
the  hidden  alleys.  Squads  were  told  off  and  sent  to  make  a 
simultaneous  descent  on  all  the  known  tramps'  burrows  in 
the  block.  Led  by  the  sergeant,  ours — I  went  along  as  a 
kind  of  war  correspondent — groped  its  way  in  single  file 
through  the  narrow  rift  between  slimy  walls  to  the  tene- 
ments in  the  rear.  Twice  during  our  trip  we  stumbled  over 
tramps,  both  women,  asleep  in  the  passage.  They  were 
quietly  passed  to  the  rear,  receiving  sundry  prods  and 
punches  on  the  trip,  and  headed  for  the  station  in  the  grip 
of  a  policeman  as  a  sort  of  advance  guard  of  the  coming 


72 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


army.  After  what  seemed  half  a  mile  of  groping  in  rhe 
dark  we  emerged  finally  into  the  alley  proper,  where  light 
escaping  through  the  cracks  of  closed  shutters  on  both  sides 
enabled  us  to  make  out  the  contour  of  three  rickety  frame 
tenements.  Snatches  of  ribald  songs  and  peals  of  coarse 
laughter  reached  us  from  now  this,  now  that  of  the  un- 
seen burrows. 

"  School  is  in,"  said  the  Sergeant  drily  as  we  stumbled 
down  the  worn  steps  of  the  next  cellar-way.  A  kick  of 
his  boot-heel  sent  the  door  flying  into  the  room. 

A  room  perhaps  a  dozen  feet  square,  with  walls  and 
ceiling  that  might  once  have  been  clean — assuredly  the 
floor  had  not  in  the  memory  of  man,  if  indeed  there  was 
other  floor  than  hard-trodden  mud — but  were  now  covered 
with  a  brown  crust  that,  touched  with  the  end  of  a  club, 
came  off  in  shuddering  showers  of  crawling  bugs,  reveal- 
ing the  blacker  filth  beneath.  Grouped  about  a  bee— keg 
that  was  propped  on  the  wreck  of  a  broken  chair,  a  foul 
and  ragged  host  of  men  and  women,  on  boxes,  benches, 
and  stools.  Tomato-cans  filled  at  the  keg  were  passed 
from  hand  to  hand.  In  the  centre  of  the  group  a  sallow, 
wrinkled  hag,  evidently  the  ruler  of  the  feast,  dealt  out 
the  hideous  stuff.  A  pile  of  copper  coins  rattled  in  her 
apron,  the  very  pennies  received  with  such  showers  of 
blessings  upon  the  giver  that  afternoon  ;  the  faces  of 
some  of  the  women  were  familiar  enough  from  the  streets 
as  those  of  beggars  forever  whining  for  a  penny,  "to  keep 
a  family  from  starving."  Their  whine  and  boisterous 
hilarity  were  ..like  hushed  now.  In  sullen,  cowed  submis- 
sion they  sat,  evidently  knowing  what  to  expect.  At  the 
first  glimpse  of  the  uniform  in  the  open  door  some  in 
the  group,  customers  with  a  record  probably,  had  turned 
their  heads  away  to  avoid  the  searching  glance  of  the 


A  RAID  03"  THE  STALE-BEER  DIVES. 


73 


officer ;  while  a  few,  less  used  to  such  scenes,  stared 
defiantly. 

A  single  stride  took  the  sergeant  into  the  middle  of  the 
room,  and  with  a  swinging  blow  of  his  club  he  knocked  the 
faucet  out  of  the  keg  and  the  half-filled  can  from  the 
boss  hag's  hand.  As  the  contents  of  both  splashed  upon 
the  floor,  half  a  dozen  of  the  group  made  a  sudden  dash, 
and  with  shoulders  humped  above  their  heads  to  shield 
their  skulls  against  the  dreaded  locust  broke  for  the  door. 
They  had  not  counted  upon  the  policemen  outside.  There 
was  a  brief  struggle,  two  or  three  heavy  thumps,  and  the 
runaways  were  brought  back  to  where  their  comrades 
crouched  in  dogged  silence. 

"  Thirteen  ! "  called  the  sergeant,  completing  his  survey. 
"  Take  them  out.  '  Revolvers'  all  but  one.  Good  for  six 
months  on  the  island,  the  whole  lot."  The  exception  was 
a  young  man  not  much  if  any  over  twenty,  with  a  hard 
look  of  dissipation  on  his  face.  He  seemed  less  uncon- 
cerned than  the  rest,  but  tried  hard  to  make  up  for  it  by 
putting  on  the  boldest  air  he  could.  "  Come  down  early," 
commented  the  officer,  shoving  him  along  with  his  stick. 
"  There  is  need  of  it.  They  don't  last  long  at  this.  That 
stuff  is  brewed  to  kill  at  long  range." 

At  the  head  of  the  cellar-steps  we  encountered  a  simi- 
lar procession  from  farther  back  in  the  alley,  where  still 
another  was  forming  to  take  up  its  march  to  the  station. 
Out  in  the  street  was  heard  the  tramp  of  the  hosts  already 
pursuing  that  well-trodden  path,  as  with  a  fresh  comple- 
ment of  men  we  entered  the  next  stale-beer  alley.  There 
were  four  dives  in  one  cellar  here.  The  filth  and  the  stench 
were  utterly  unbearable  ;  even  the  sergeant  turned  his 
back  and  fled  after  scattering  the  crowd  with  his  club  and 
starting  them  toward  the  door.    The  very  dog  in  the  alley 


74 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


preferred  the  cold  flags  for  a  berth  to  the  stifling  cellar. 
We  found  it  lying  outside.  Seventy-five  tramps,  male 
and  female,  were  arrested  in  the  four  small  rooms.  In 
one  of  them,  where  the  air  seemed  thick  enough  to  cut 
with  a  knife,  we  found  a  woman,  a  mother  with  a  new-born 
babe  on  a  heap  of  dirty  straw.  She  was  asleep  and  was 
left  until  an  ambulance  could  be  called  to  take  her  to  the 
hospital. 

Returning  to  the  station  with  this  batch,  we  found  every 
window  in  the  building  thrown  open  to  the  cold  October 
wind,  and  the  men  from  the  sergeant  down  smoking  the 
strongest  cigars  that  could  be  obtained  by  way  of  disen- 
fecting  the  place.  Two  hundred  and  seventy-five  tramps 
had  been  jammed  into  the  cells  to  be  arraigned  next  morn- 
ing in  the  police  court  on  the  charge  of  vagrancy,  with  the 
certain  prospect  of  six  months  "  on  the  Island."  Of  the 
sentence  at  least  they  were  sure.  As  to  the  length  01  the 
men's  stay  the  experienced  official  at  the  desk  was  scepti- 
cal, it  being  then  within  a  month  of  an  important  elec- 
tion. If  tramps  have  nothing  else  to  call  their  own  they 
have  votes,  and  votes  that  are  for  sale  cheap  for  cash. 
About  election  time  this  gives  them  a  "pull,"  at  least  by 
proxy.  The  sergeant  observed,  as  if  it  were  the  most 
natural  thing  in  the  world,  that  he  had  more  than  once 
seen  the  same  tramp  sent  to  Blackwell's  Island  twice  in 
twenty-four  hours  for  six  months  at  a  time. 

As  a  thief  never  owns  to  his  calling,  however  devoid  of 
moral  scruples,  preferring  to  style  himself  a  speculator,  so 
this  real  home-product  of  the  slums,  the  stale- beer  dive, 
is  known  about  "  the  Bend  "  by  the  more  dignified  name 
of  the  two-cent  restaurant.  Usually,  as  in  this  instance, 
it  is  in  some  cellar  giving  on  a  back  alley.  Doctored,  un- 
licensed beer  is  its  chief  ware.    Sometimes  a  cup  of  "cof- 


76 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


fee  "  and  a  stale  roll  may  be  had  for  two  cents.  The  men 
pay  the  score.  To  the  women — unutterable  horror  of 
the  suggestion — the  place  is  free.  The  beer  is  collected 
from  the  kegs  put  on  the  sidewalk  by  the  saloon-keeper  to 
await  the  brewer's  cart,  and  is  touched  up  with  drugs  to 
put  a  froth  on  it.  The  privilege  to  sit  all  night  on  a 
chair,  or  sleep  on  a  table,  or  in  a  barrel,  goes  with  each 
round  of  drinks.  Generally  an  Italian,  sometimes  a  ne- 
gro, occasionally  a  woman,  "  runs  "  the  dive.  Their  cus- 
tomers, alike  homeless  and  hopeless  in  their  utter  wretch- 
edness, are  the  professional  tramps,  and  these  only.  The 
meanest  thief  is  infinitely  above  the  stale-beer  level.  Once 
upon  that  plane  there  is  no  escape.  To  sink  below  it  is 
impossible ;  no  one  ever  rose  from  it.  One  night  spent 
in  a  stale-beer  dive  is  like  the  traditional  putting  on  of 
the  uniform  of  the  caste,  the  discarded  rags  of  an  old 
tramp.  That  stile  once  crossed,  the  lane  has  no  longer 
a  turn ;  and  contrary  to  the  proverb,  it  is  usually  not  long 
either. 

With  the  gravitation  of  the  Italian  tramp  landlord  to- 
ward the  old  stronghold  of  the  African  on  the  West  Side, 
a  share  of  the  stale-beer  traffic  has  left  "  the  Bend ;  "  but 
its  headquarters  will  always  remain  there,  the  real  home  of 
trampdom,  just  as  Fourteenth  Street  is  its  limit.  No  real 
tramp  crosses  that  frontier  after  nightfall  and  in  the  day- 
time only  to  beg.  Repulsive  as  the  business  is,  its  profits 
to  the  Italian  dive-keeper  are  considerable  ;  in  fact,  barring 
a  slight  outlay  in  the  ingredients  that  serve  to  give  "  life  " 
to  the  beer-dregs,  it  is  all  profit.  The  "  banker "  who 
curses  the  Italian  colony  does  not  despise  taking  a  hand 
in  it,  and  such  a  thing  as  a  stale-beer  trust  on  a  Mulberry 
Street  scale  may  yet  be  among  the  possibilities.  One  of 
these  bankers,  wrho  was  once  known  to  the  police  as  the 


A  RAID  ON  THE  STALE-BEER  DIVES. 


77 


keeper  of  one  notorious  stale-beer  dive  and  the  active 
backer  of  others,  is  to-day  an  extensive  manufacturer  of 
macaroni,  the  owner  of  several  big  tenements  and  other 
real  estate ;  and  the  capital,  it  is  said,  has  all  come  out  of 
his  old  business.    Very  likely  it  is  true. 

On  hot  summer  nights  it  is  no  rare  experience  when 
exploring  the  worst  of  the  tenements  in  "  the  Bend  "  to  find 
the  hallways  occupied  by  rows  of  "sitters,"  tramps  whom 
laziness  or  hard  luck  has  prevented  from  earning  enough 
by  their  day's  "  labor  "  to  pay  the  admission  fee  to  a  stale- 
beer  dive,  and  who  have  their  reasons  for  declining  the 
hospitality  of  the  police  station  lodging-rooms.  Huddled 
together  in  loathsome  files,  they  squat  there  over  night,  or 
until  an  inquisitive  policeman  breaks  up  the  congregation 
with  his  club,  which  in  Mulberry  Street  has  always  free 
swing.  At  that  season  the  woman  tramp  predominates. 
The  men,  some  of  them  at  least,  take  to  the  railroad 
track  and  to  camping  out  when  the  nights  grow  warm,  re- 
turning in  the  fall  to  prey  on  the  city  and  to  recruit 
their  ranks  from  the  lazy,  the  shiftless,  and  the  unfortu- 
nate. Like  a  foul  loadstone,  "  the  Bend "  attracts  and 
brings  them  back,  no  matter  how  far  they  have  wandered. 
For  next  to  idleness  the  tramp  loves  rum ;  next  to  rum 
stale  beer,  its  equivalent  of  the  gutter.  And  the  first  and 
last  go  best  together. 

As  "sitters"  they  occasionally  find  a  job  in  the  saloons 
about  Chatham  and  Pearl  Streets  on  cold  winter  nights, 
when  the  hallway  is  not  practicable,  that  enables  them  to 
pick  up  a  charity  drink  now  and  then  and  a  bite  of  an 
infrequent  sandwich.  The  barkeeper  permits  them  to  sit 
about  the  stove  and  by  shivering  invite  the  sympathy  of 
transient  customers.  The  dodge  works  well,  especially 
about  Christinas  and  election  time,  and  the  sitters  are  able 


78 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


to  keep  comfortably  filled  up  to  the  advantage  of  their 
host.  But  to  look  thoroughly  miserable  they  must  keep 
awake.  A  tramp  placidly  dozing  at  the  fire  would  not  be 
an  object  of  sympathy.  To  make  sure  that  they  do  keep 
awake,  the  wily  bartender  makes  them  sit  constantly  swing- 
ing one  foot  like  the  pendulum  of  a  clock.  When  it 
stops  the  slothful  "sitter"  is  roused  with  a  kick  and  " fired 
out."  It  is  said  by  those  who  profess  to  know  that  habit 
has  come  to  the  rescue  of  oversleepy  tramps  and  that  the 
old  rounders  can  swing  hand  or  foot  in  their  sleep  without 
betraying  themselves.  In  some  saloons  "  sitters  "  are  let 
in  at  these  seasons  in  fresh  batches  every  hour. 

On  one  of  my  visits  to  "the  Bend"  I  came  across  a  par- 
ticularly ragged  and  disreputable  tramp,  who  sat  smoking 
his  pipe  on  the  rung  of  a  ladder  with  such  evident  philo- 
sophic contentment  in  the  busy  labor  of  a  score  of  rag- 
pickers all  about  him,  that  I  bade  him  sit  for  a  picture, 
offering  him  ten  cents  for  the  job.  He  accepted  the  offer 
with  hardly  a  nod,  and  sat  patiently  watching  me  from 
his  perch  until  I  got  ready  for  work.  Then  he  took  the 
pipe  out  of  his  mouth  and  put  it  in  his  pocket,  calmly  de- 
claring that  it  was  not  included  in  the  contract,  and  that 
it  was  worth  a  quarter  to  have  it  go  in  the  picture.  The 
pipe,  by  the  way,  was  of  clay,  and  of  the  two-for-a-cent 
kind.  But  I  had  to  give  in.  The  man,  scarce  ten  sec- 
onds employed  at  honest  labor,  even  at  sitting  down,  at 
which  he  was  an  undoubted  expert,  had  gone  on  strike. 
He  knew  his  rights  and  the  value  of  "  work,"  and  was 
not  to  be  cheated  out  of  either. 

Whence  these  tramps,  and  why  the  tramping  ?  are 
questions  oftener  asked  than  answered.  Ill-applied  char- 
ity and  idleness  answer  the  first  query.  They  are  the 
whence,  and  to  a  large  extent  the  why  also.    Once  start- 


THE  TRAMP. 


80  HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 

ed  on  the  career  of  a  tramp,  the  man  keeps  to  it  because 
it  is  the  laziest.  Tramps  and  toughs  profess  the  same 
doctrine,  that  the  world  owes  them  a  living,  but  from 
stand-points  that  tend  in  different  directions.  The  tough 
does  not  become  a  tramp,  save  in  rare  instances,  when  old 
and  broken  down.  Even  then  usually  he  is  otherwise 
disposed  of.  The  devil  has  various  ways  of  taking  care 
of  his  own.  Nor  is  the  tramps'  army  recruited  from 
any  certain  class.  All  occupations  and  most  grades  of 
society  yield  to  it  their  contingent  of  idleness.  Occasion- 
ally, from  one  cause  or  another,  a  recruit  of  a  better  stamp 
is  forced  into  the  ranks  ;  but  the  first  acceptance  of  alms 
puts  a  brand  on  the  able-bodied  man  which  his  moral  nat- 
ure rarely  hold  out  to  efface.  He  seldom  recovers  his 
lost  caste.  The  evolution  is  gradual,  keeping  step  with 
the  increasing  shabbiness  of  his  clothes  and  correspond- 
ing loss  of  self-respect,  until  he  reaches  the  bottom  in  "  the 
Bend." 

Of  the  tough  the  tramp  doctrine  that  the  world  owes 
him  a  living  makes  a  thief ;  of  the  tramp  a  coward. 
Numbers  only  make  him  bold  unless  he  has  to  do  with 
defenceless  women.  In  the  city  the  policemen  keep  him 
straight  enough.  The  women  rob  an  occasional  clothes- 
line when  no  one  is  looking,  or  steal  the  pail  and  scrubbing- 
brush  with  which  they  are  set  to  clean  up  in  the  station- 
house  lodging-rooms  after  their  night's  sleep.  At  the 
police  station  the  roads  of  the  tramp  and  the  tough  again 
converge.  In  mid-winter,  on  the  coldest  nights,  the  sani- 
tary police  corral  the  tramps  here  and  in  their  lodging- 
houses  and  vaccinate  them,  despite  their  struggles  and 
many  oaths  that  they  have  recently  been  "  scraped." 
The  station-house  is  the  sieve  that  sifts  out  the  chaff 
from  the  wheat,  if  there  be  any  wheat  there.    A  man 


A  RAID  ON  THE  STALE-BEER  DIVES. 


81 


goes  from  his  first  night's  sleep  on  the  hard  slab  of  a  po- 
lice station  lodging-room  to  a  deck-hand's  berth  on  an  out- 
going steamer,  to  the  recruiting  office,  to  any  work  that 
is  honest,  or  he  goes  "  to  the  devil  or  the  dives,  same 
thing,"  says  my  friend,  the  Sergeant,  who  knows. 


G 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  CHEAP  LODGING-HOUSES. 

TTJ'HEN  it  comes  to  the  question  of  numbers  with  this 
▼  »  tramps'  army,  another  factor  of  serious  portent 
has  to  be  taken  into  account :  the  cheap  lodging-houses.  In 
the  caravanseries  that  line  Chatham  Street  and  the  Bow- 
ery, harboring  nightly  a  population  as  large  as  that  of 
many  a  thriving  town,  a  home-made  article  of  tramp  and 
thief  is  turned  out  that  is  attracting  the  increasing  atten- 
tion of  the  police,  and  offers  a  field  for  the  missionary's 
labors  beside  which  most  others  seem  of  slight  account. 
Within  a  year  they  have  been  stamped  as  nurseries  of 
crime  by  the  chief  of  the  Secret  Police,*  the  sort  of  crime 
that  feeds  especially  on  idleness  and  lies  ready  to  the  hand 
of  fatal  opportunity.  In  the  same  strain  one  of  the  jus- 
tices on  the  police  court  bench  sums  up  his  long  experi- 
ence as  a  committing  magistrate  :  "  The  ten-cent  lodging- 
houses  more  than  counterbalance  the  good  done  by  the 
free  reading-room,  lectures,  and  all  other  agencies  of  re- 
form. Such  lodging-houses  have  caused  more  destitution, 
more  beggary  and  crime  than  any  other  agency  I  know 
of."  A  very  slight  acquaintance  with  the  subject  is  suffi- 
cient to  convince  the  observer  that  neither  authority  over- 
states the  fact.    The  two  officials  had  reference,  however, 

*  Inspector  Byrnes  on  Lodging-houses,  in  the  North  American  Re- 
view, September,  1889. 


THE  CHEAP  LODGING-HOUSES. 


83 


to  two  different  grades  of  lodging-houses.  The  cost  of  a 
night's  lodging  makes  the  difference.  There  is  a  wider 
gap  between  the  "  hotel  " — they  are  all  hotels — that 
charges  a  quarter  and  the  one  that  furnishes  a  bed  for  a 
dime  than  between  the  bridal  suite  and  the  every-day  hall 
bedroom  of  the  ordinary  hostelry. 

The  metropolis  is  to  lots  of  people  like  a  lighted  can- 
dle to  the  moth.  It  attracts  them  in  swarms  that  come 
year  after  year  with  the  vague  idea  that  they  can  get  along 
here  if  anywhere ;  that  something  is  bound  to  turn  up 
among  so  many.  Nearly  all  are  young  men,  unsettled  in 
life,  many — most  of  them,  perhaps — fresh  from  good 
homes,  beyond  a  doubt  with  honest  hopes  of  getting  a 
start  in  the  city  and  making  a  way  for  themselves.  Few 
of  them  have  much  money  to  waste  while  looking  around, 
and  the  cheapness  of  the  lodging  offered  is  an  object. 
Fewer  still  know  anything  about  the  city  and  its  pitfalls. 
They  have  come  in  search  of  crowds,  of  "  life,"  and  they 
gravitate  naturally  to  the  Bowery,  the  great  democratic 
highway  of  the  city,  where  the  twenty -five-cent  lodging- 
houses  take  them  in.  In  the  alleged  reading-rooms  of 
these  great  barracks,  that  often  have  accommodations,  such 
as  they  are,  for  two,  three,  and  even  four  hundred  guests, 
they  encounter  three  distinct  classes  of  associates :  the 
great  mass  adventurers  like  themselves,  waiting  there  for 
something  to  turn  up  ;  a  much  smaller  class  of  respectable 
clerks  or  mechanics,  who,  too  poor  or  too  lonely  to  have  a 
home  of  their  own,  live  this  way  from  year  to  year  ;  and 
lastly  the  thief  in  search  of  recruits  for  his  trade.  The 
sights  the  young  stranger  sees,  and  the  company  he  keeps, 
in  the  Bowery  are  not  of  a  kind  to  strengthen  any  moral 
principle  he  may  have  brought  away  from  home,  and  by 
the  time  his  money  is  gone,  with  no  work  yet  in  sight,  and 


84 


HOW  THE  OTHEE  HALF  LIVES. 


lie  goes  down  a  step,  a  long  step,  to  the  fifteen-cent  lodg- 
ing-house, he  is  ready  for  the  tempter  whom  he  finds 
waiting  for  him  there,  reinforced  by  the  contingent  of  ex- 
convicts  returning  from  the  prisons  after  having  served 
out  their  sentences  for  robbery  or  thefi.  Then  it  is  that 
the  something  he  has  been  waiting  for  turns  up.  The  po- 
lice returns  have  the  record  of  it.  "  In  nine  cases  out  of 
ten,"  says  Inspector  Byrnes,  "  he  turns  out  a  thief,  or  a 
burglar,  if,  indeed,  he  does  not  sooner  or  later  become  a 
murderer."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  some  of  the  most  atro- 
cious of  recent  murders  have  been  the  result  of  schemes 
of  robbery  hatched  in  these  houses,  and  so  frequent  and 
bold  have  become  the  depredations  of  the  lodging-house 
thieves,  that  the  authorities  have  been  compelled  to  make 
a  public  demand  for  more  effective  laws  that  shall  make 
them  subject  at  all  times  to  police  regulation. 

Inspector  Byrnes  observes  that  in  the  last  two  or  three 
years  at  least  four  hundred  young  men  have  been  arrested 
for  petty  crimes  that  originated  in  the  lodging-houses, 
and  that  in  many  cases  it  was  their  first  step  in  crime. 
He  adds  his  testimony  to  the  notorious  fact  that  three- 
fourths  of  the  young  men  called  on  to  plead  to  generally 
petty  offences  in  the  courts  are  under  twenty  years  of  age, 
poorly  clad,  and  without  means.  The  bearing  of  the  re- 
mark is  obvious.  One  of  the,  to  the  police,  well-known 
thieves  who  lived,  when  out  of  jail,  at  the  Windsor,  a 
well-known  lodging-house  in  the  Bowery,  went  to  Johns- 
town after  the  flood  and  was  shot  and  killed  there  while 
robbing  the  dead. 

An  idea  of  just  how  this  particular  scheme  of  corrup- 
tion works,  with  an  extra  touch  of  infamy  thrown  in,  may 
be  gathered  from  the  story  of  David  Smith,  the  "New 
York  Fagin,"  who  was  convicted  and  sent  to  prison  last 


THE  CHEAP  LODGING-HOUSES. 


85 


year  through  the  instrumentality,  of  the  Society  for  the 
Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Children.  Here  is  the  account 
from  the  Society's  last  report : 

"  The  boy,  Edward  Mulhearn,  fourteen  years  old,  had 
run  away  from  his  home  in  Jersey  City,  thinking  he  might 
find  work  and  friends  in  New  York.  He  may  have  been 
a  trifle  wild.  He  met  Smith  on  the  Bowery  and  recog- 
nized him  as  an  acquaintance.  When  Smith  offered  him 
a  supper  and  bed  he  was  only  too  glad  to  accept.  Smith 
Jed  the  boy  to  a  vile  lodging-house  on  the  Bowery,  where 
he  introduced  him  to  his  6  pals '  and  swore  he  would 
make  a  man  of  him  before  he  was  a  week  older.  Next 
day  he  took  the  unsuspecting  Edward  all  over  the  Bowery 
and  Grand  Street,  showed  him  the  sights  and  drew  his  at- 
tention to  the  careless  way  the  ladies  carried  their  bags 
and  purses  and  the  easy  thing  it  was  to  get  them.  He 
induced  Edward  to  try  his  hand.  Edward  tried  and  won. 
He  was  richer  by  three  dollars  !  It  did  seem  easy.  '  Of 
course  it  is,'  said  his  companion.  From  that  time  Smith 
took  the  boy  on  a  number  of  thieving  raids,  but  he  never 
seemed  to  become  adept  enough  to  be  trusted  out  of  range 
of  the  '  Fagin's '  watchful  eye.  "When  he  went  out  alone 
he  generally  returned  empty-handed.  This  did  not  suit 
Smith.  It  was  then  he  conceived  the  idea  of  turning  this 
little  inferior  thief  into  a  superior  beggar.  He  took  the 
boy  into  his  room  and  burned  his  arms  wTith  a  hot  iron. 
The  boy  screamed  and  entreated  in  vain.  The  merciless 
wretch  pressed  the  iron  deep  into  the  tender  flesh,  and 
afterward  applied  acid  to  the  raw  wound. 

"  Thus  prepared,  with  his  arm  inflamed,  swollen,  and 
painful,  Edward  was  sent  out  every  day  by  this  fiend, 
who  never  let  him  out  of  his  sight,  and  threatened  to 
burn  his  arm  off  if  he  did  not  beg  money  enough.  He 


86 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


was  instructed  to  tell  people  the  wound  had  been  caused 
by  acid  falling  upon  his  arm  at  the  works.  Edward  was 
now  too  much  under  the  man's  influence  to  resist  or  dis- 
obey him.  He  begged  hard  and  handed  Smith  the  pen- 
nies faithfully.  He  received  in  return  bad  food  and 
worse  treatment." 

The  reckoning  came  when  the  wretch  encountered  the 
boy's  father,  in  search  of  his  child,  in  the  Bowery,  and  fell 
under  suspicion  of  knowing  more  than  he  pretended  of 
the  lad's  whereabouts.  He  was  found  in  his  den  with  a 
half  dozen  of  his  chums  revelling  on  the  proceeds  of  the 
boy's  begging  for  the  day. 

The  twenty-five  cent  lodging-house  keeps  up  the  pre- 
tence of  a  bedroom,  though  the  head-high  partition  en- 
closing a  space  just  large  enough  to  hold  a  cot  and  a  chair 
and  allow  the  man  room  to  pull  off  his  clothes  is  the  shal- 
lowest of  all  pretences.  The  fifteen-cent  bed  stands  boldly 
forth  without  screen  in  a  room  full  of  bunks  with  sheets 
as  yellow  and  blankets  as  foul.  At  the  ten-cent  level  the 
locker  for  the  sleeper's  clothes  disappears.  There  is  no 
longer  need  of  it.  The  tramp  limit  is  reached,  and  there 
is  nothing  to  lock  up  save,  on  general  principles,  the 
lodger.  Usually  the  ten-  and  seven-cent  lodgings  are  dif- 
ferent grades  of  the  same  abomination.  Some  sort  of  an 
apology  for  a  bed,  with  mattress  and  blanket,  represents 
the  aristocratic  purchase  of  the  tramp  who,  by  a  lucky 
stroke  of  beggary,  has  exchanged  the  chance  of  an  empty 
box  or  ash-barrel  for  shelter  on  the  quality  floor  of  one  of 
these  "  hocels."  A  strip  of  canvas,  strung  between  rough 
timbers,  without  covering  of  any  kind,  does  for  the 
couch  of  the  seven-cent  lodger  who  prefers  the  question- 
able comfort  of  a  red-hot  stove  close  to  his  elbow  to  the 
revelry  of  the  stale-beer  dive.    It  is  not  the  most  secure 


THE  CHEAP  LODGIXG-HOUSES. 


87 


perch  in  the  world.  Uneasy  sleepers  roll  off  at  intervals, 
but  they  have  not  far  to  fall  to  the  next  tier  of  bunks, 
and  the  commotion  that  ensues  is  speedily  quieted  by  the 
boss  and  his  clnb.    On  cold  winter  nights,  when  every 


BUNKS  IN  A  SEVEX-CENT  LODGING-HOUSE,  PELE  STREET. 


bunk  had  its  tenant,  I  have  stood  in  such  a  lodging-room 
more  than  once,  and  listening  to  the  snoring  of  the 
sleepers  like  the  regular  strokes  of  an  engine,  and  the 
slow  creaking  of  the  beams  under  their  restless  weight, 
imagined  myself  on  shipboard  and  experienced  the  very 


88 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


real  nausea  of  sea-sickness.  The  one  thing  that  did  not 
favor  the  deception  was  the  air ;  its  character  could  not 
be  mistaken. 

The  proprietor  of  one  of  these  seven-cent  houses  was 
known  to  me  as  a  man  of  reputed  wealth  and  respecta- 
bility. He  "  ran  "  three  such  establishments  and  made, 
it  was  said,  $8,000  a  year  clear  profit  on  his  investment. 
He  lived  in  a  handsome  house  quite  near  to  the  stylish 
precincts  of  Murray  Hill,  where  the  nature  of  his  occupa- 
tion was  not  suspected.  A  notice  that  was  posted  on  the 
wall  of  the  lodgers'  room  suggested  at  least  an  effort  to 
maintain  his  up-town  standing  in  the  slums.  It  read  : 
"  Is  o  swearing  or  loud  talking  after  nine  o'clock."  Before 
nine  no  exceptions  were  taken  to  the  natural  vulgarity  of 
the  place  ;  but  that  was  the  limit. 

There  are  no  licensed  lodging-houses  known  to  me 
which  charge  less  than  seven  cents  for  even  such  a  bed  as 
this  canvas  strip,  though  there  are  unlicensed  ones  enough 
where  one  may  sleep  on  the  floor  for  five  cents  a  spot,  or 
squat  in  a  sheltered  hallway  for  three.  The  police  station 
lodging-house,  where  the  soft  side  of  a  plank  is  the  regu- 
lation couch,  is  next  in  order.  The  manner  in  which  this 
police  bed  is  "  made  up  "  is  interesting  in  its  simplicity. 
The  loose  planks  that  make  the  platform  are  simply  turned 
over,  and  the  job  is  done,  with  an  occasional  coat  of  white- 
wash thrown  in  to  sweeten  things.  I  know  of  only  one 
easier  way,  but,  so  far  as  I  am  informed,  it  has  never 
been  introduced  in  this  country.  It  used  to  be  practised, 
if  report  spoke  truly,  in  certain  old-country  towns.  The 
"  bed "  was  represented  by  clothes-lines  stretched  across 
the  room  upon  which  the  sleepers  hung  by  the  arm-pits 
for  a  penny  a  night.  In  the  morning  the  boss  woke  them 
up  by  simply  untying  the  line  at  one  end  and  letting  it  go 


THE  CHEAP  LODGING-HOUSES. 


89 


with  its  load  ;  a  labor-saving  device  certainly,  and  highly 
successful  in  attaining  the  desired  end. 

According  to  the  police  figures,  4,974,025  separate  lodg- 
ings were  furnished  last  year  by  these  dormitories,  be- 
tween two  and  three  hundred  in  number,  and,  adding  the 
147,034  lodgings  furnished  by  the  station-houses,  the  total 
of  the  homeless  army  was  5,121,659,  an  average  of  over 
fourteen  thousand  homeless  men  *  for  every  night  in  the 
year  !  The  health  officers,  professional  optimists  always  in 
matters  that  trench  upon  their  official  jurisdiction,  insist 
that  the  number  is  not  quite  so  large  as  here  given.  But, 
apart  from  any  slight  discrepancy  in  the  figures,  the  more 
important  fact  remains  that  last  year's  record  of  lodgers 
is  an  all  round  increase  over  the  previous  year's  of  over 
three  hundred  thousand,  and  that  this  has  been  the  ratio 
of  growth  of  the  business  during  the  last  three  years,  the 
period  of  which  Inspector  Byrnes  complains  as  turning 
out  so  many  young  criminals  with  the  lodging-house  stamp 
upon  them.  More  than  half  of  the  lodging-houses  are 
in  the  Bowery  district,  that  is  to  say,  the  Fourth,  Sixth, 
and  Tenth  TVrards,  and  they  harbor  nearly  three-fourths  of 
their  crowds.  The  calculation  that  more  than  nine  thou- 
sand homeless  young  men  lodge  nightly  along  Chatham 
Street  and  the  Bowery,  between  the  City  Hall  and  the 
Cooper  Union,  is  probably  not  far  out  of  the  way.  The 
City  Missionary  finds  them  there  far  less  frequently  than 
the  thief  in  need  of  helpers.  Appropriately  enough, 
nearly  one-fifth  of  all  the  pawn-shops  in  the  city  and  one- 
sixth  of  all  the  saloons  are  located  here,  while  twenty- 
seven  per  cent,  of  all  the  arrests  on  the  police  books  have 
been  credited  to  the  district  for  the  last  two  years. 

About  election  time,  especially  in  Presidential  elec- 
*  Deduct  69,111  women  lodgers  in  the  police  stations. 


90 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


tions,  the  lodging-houses  come  out  strong  on  the  side  of 
the  political  boss  who  has  the  biggest  "  barrel."  The  vic- 
tory in  political  contests,  in  the  three  wards  I  have  men- 
tioned of  all  others,  is  distinctly  to  the  general  with  the 
strongest  battalions,  and  the  lodging-houses  are  his  favor- 
ite recruiting  ground.  The  colonization  of  voters  is  an 
evil  of  the  first  magnitude,  none  the  less  because  both 
parties  smirch  their  hands  with  it,  and  for  that  reason 
next  to  hopeless.  Honors  are  easy,  where  the  two  "  ma- 
chines," intrenched  in  their  strongholds,  outbid  each  other 
across  the  Bowery  in  open  rivalry  as  to  who  shall  commit 
the  most  flagrant  frauds  at  the  polls.  Semi-occasionally 
a  champion  offender  is  caught  and  punished,  as  was,  not 
long  ago,  the  proprietor  of  one  of  the  biggest  Bowery 
lodging-houses.  But  such  scenes  are  largely  spectacular, 
if  not  prompted  by  some  hidden  motive  of  revenge  that 
survives  from  the  contest.  Beyond  a  doubt  Inspector 
Byrnes  speaks  by  the  card  when  he  observes  that  "usually 
this  work  is  done  in  the  interest  of  some  local  political 
boss,  who  stands  by  the  owner  of  the  house,  in  case  the 
latter  gets  into  trouble."  For  standing  by,  read  twisting 
the  machinery  of  outraged  justice  so  that  its  hand  shall 
fall  not  too  heavily  upon  the  culprit,  or  miss  him  alto- 
gether. One  of  the  houses  that  achieved  profitable  noto- 
riety in  this  way  in  many  successive  elections,  a  notorious 
tramps'  resort  in  Houston  Street,  was  lately  given  up,  and 
has  most  appropriately  been  turned  into  a  bar-factory, 
thus  still  contributing,  though  in  a  changed  form,  to  the 
success  of  "  the  cause."  It  must  be  admitted  that  the 
black  tramp  who  herds  in  the  West  Side  "  hotels  "  is  more 
discriminating  in  this  matter  of  electioneering  than  his 
white  brother.  He  at  least  exhibits  some  real  loyalty  in 
invariably  selling  his  vote  to  the  Republican  bidder  for  a 


THE  CHEAP  LODGING-HOUSES. 


91 


dollar,  while  he  charges  the  Democratic  boss  a  dollar  and 
a  half.  In  view  of  the  well-known  facts,  there  is  a  good 
deal  of  force  in  the  remark  made  by  a  friend  of  ballot  re- 
form during  the  recent  struggle  over  that  hotly  contested 
issue,  that  real  ballot  reform  will  do  more  to  knock  out 
cheap  lodging-houses  than  all  the  regulations  of  police  and 
health  officers  together. 

The  experiment  made  by  a  well-known  stove  manufact- 
urer a  winter  or  two  ago  in  the  way  of  charity,  might 
have  thrown  much  desired  light  on  the  question  of  the 
number  of  tramps  in  the  city,  could  it  have  been  carried 
to  a  successful  end.  lie  opened  a  sort  of  breakfast  shop 
for  the  idle  and  unemployed  in  the  region  of  Washington 
Square,  offering  to  all  who  had  no  money  a  cup  of  coffee 
and  a  roll  for  nothing.  The  first  morning  he  had  a  dozen 
customers,  the  next  about  two  hundred.  The  number 
kept  growing  until  one  morning,  at  the  end  of  two  weeks, 
found  by  actual  count  2,011  shivering  creatures  in  line 
waiting  their  turn  for  a  seat  at  his  tables.  The  shop  was 
closed  that  day.  It  was  one  of  the  rare  instances  of  too 
great  a  rush  of  custom  wrecking  a  promising  business,  and 
the  great  problem  remained  unsolved. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


CHINATOWN. 


BETWEEN"  the  tabernacles  of  Jewry  and  the  shrines 
of  the  Bend,  Joss  has  cheekily  planted  his  pagan 
worship  of  idols,  chief  among  which  are  the  celestial 
worshipper's  own  gain  and  lusts.  Whatever  may  be  said 
about  the  Chinaman  being  a  thousand  years  behind  the 
age  on  his  own  shores,  here  he  is  distinctly  abreast  of  it  in 
his  successful  scheming  to  "make  it  pay."  It  is  doubt- 
ful if  there  is  anything  he  does  not  turn  to  a  paying  ac- 
count, from  his  religion  down,  or  up,  as  one  prefers.  At 
the  risk  of  distressing  some  well-meaning,  but,  I  fear,  too 
trustful  people,  I  state  it  in  advance  as  my  opinion,  based 
on  the  steady  observation  of  years,  that  all  attempts  to 
make  an  effective  Christian  of  John  Chinaman  will  re- 
main abortive  in  this  generation  ;  of  the  next  I  have,  if 
anything,  lepi  hope.  Ages  of  senseless  idolatry,  a  mere 
grub-worship,  have  left  him  without  the  essential  quali- 
ties for  appreciating  the  gentle  teachings  of  a  faith  whose 
motive  and  unselfish  spirit  are  alike  beyond  his  grasp. 
He  lacks  the  handle  of  a  strong  faith  in  something,  any- 
thing, however  wrong,  to  catch  him  by.  There  is  nothing 
strong  about  Lim,  except  his  passions  when  aroused.  I 
am  convinced  that  he  adopts  Christianity,  when  he  adopts 
it  at  all,  as  he  puts  on  American  clothes,  with  what  the 
politicians  would  call  an  ulterior  motive,  some  sort  of  gain 
in  the  near  prospect — washing,  a  Christian  wife,  perhaps, 


CHINATOWN. 


93 


anything  he  happens  to  rate  for  the  moment  above  his 
cherished  pigtail.  It  may  be  that  I  judge  him  too  harshly. 
Exceptions  may  be  found.  Indeed,  for  the  credit  of  the 
race,  I  hope  there  are  such.  But  I  am  bound  to  say  my 
hope  is  not  backed  by  lively  faith. 

Chinatown  as  a  spectacle  is  disappointing.  Xext-door 
neighbor  to  the  Bend,  it  has  little  of  its  outdoor  stir  and 
life,  none  of  its  gayly-colored  rags  or  picturesque  filth  and 
poverty.  Mott  Street  is  clean  to  distraction  :  the  laundry 
stamp  is  on  it,  though  the  houses  are  chiefly  of  the  con- 
ventional tenement-house  type,  with  nothing  to  rescue 
them  from  the  everyday  dismal  dreariness  of  their  kind 
save  here  and  there  a  splash  of  dull  red  or  yellow,  a  sign, 
hung  endways  and  with  streamers  of  red  flannel  tacked 
on,  that  announces  in  Chinese  characters  that  Dr.  Chay 
Yen  Chong  sells  Chinese  herb  medicines,  or  that  "Won 
Lung  &  Co. — queer  contradiction — take  in  washing,  or 
deal  out  tea  and  groceries.  There  are  some  gimcracks 
in  the  second  story  fire-escape  of  one  of  the  houses,  signi- 
fying that  Joss  or  a  club  has  a  habitation  there.  An 
American  patent  medicine  concern  has  seized  the  oppor- 
tunity to  decorate  the  back-ground  with  its  cabalistic 
trade-mark,  that  in  this  company  looks  as  foreign  as  the 
rest.  Doubtless  the  privilege  was  bought  for  cash.  It 
will  buy  anything  in  Chinatown,  Joss  himself  included,  as 
indeed,  why  should  it  not  ?  He  was  bought  for  cash 
across  the  sea  and  came  here  under  the  law  that  shuts  out 
the  live  Chinaman,  but  lets  in  his  dead  god  on  payment  of 
the  statutory  duty  on  bric-a-brac.  Red  and  yellow  are  the 
holiday  colors  of  Chinatown  as  of  the  Bend,  but  they  do 
not  lend  brightness  in  Mott  Street  as  around  the  corner  in 
Mulberry.  Rather,  they  seem  to  descend  to  the  level  of 
the  general  dulness,  and  glower  at  you  from  doors  and 


94 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


windows,  from  the  telegraph  pole  that  is  the  official  organ 
of  Chinatown  and  from  the  store  signs,  with  blank,  un- 
meaning stare,  suggesting  nothing,  asking  no  questions, 
and  answering  none.  Fifth  Avenue  is  not  duller  on  a 
rainy  day  than  Mott  Street  to  one  in  search  of  excite- 
ment. "Whatever  is  on  foot  goes  on  behind  closed  doors. 
Stealth  and  secretiveness  are  as  much  part  of  the  China- 
man in  New  York  as  the  cat-like  tread  of  his  felt  shoes. 
His  business,  as  his  domestic  life,  shuns  the  light,  less  be- 
cause there  is  anything  to  conceal  than  because  that  is  the 
way  of  the  man.  Perhaps  the  attitude  of  American  civili- 
zation toward  the  stranger,  whom  it  invited  in,  has  taught 
him  that  way.  At  any  rate,  the  very  doorways  of  his 
offices  and  shops  are  fenced  off  by  queer,  forbidding 
partitions  suggestive  of  a  continual  state  of  siege.  The 
stranger  who  enters  through  the  crooked  approach  is  re- 
ceived with  sudden  silence,  a  sullen  stare,  and  an  angry 
"  Yat  you  vant  ?  "  that  breathes  annoyance  and  distrust. 

Trust  not  him  who  trusts  no  one,  is  as  safe  a  rule  in 
Chinatown  as  out  of  it.  Were  not  Mott  Street  overawed 
in  its  isolation,  it  would  not  be  safe  to  descend  this  open 
cellar- way,  through  which  come  the  pungent  odor  of  burn- 
ing opium  and  the  clink  of  copper  coins  on  the  table.  As 
it  is,  though  safe,  it  is  not  profitable  to  intrude.  At  the 
first  foot-fall  of  leather  soles  on  the  steps  the  hum  of  talk 
ceases,  and  the  group  of  celestials,  crouching  over  their 
game  of  fan  tan,  stop  playing  and  watch  the  comer  with 
ugly  looks.  Fan  tan  is  their  ruling  passion.  The  aver- 
age Chinama.],  the  police  will  tell  you,  would  rather  gam- 
ble than  eat  any  day,  and  they  have  ample  experience  to 
back  them.  Only  the  fellow  in  the  bunk  smokes  away, 
indifferent  to  all  else  but  his  pipe  and  his  own  enjoyment. 
It  is  a  mistake  to  assume  that  Chinatown  is  honeycombed 


CHIXATOWX. 


95 


with  opium  "  joints."  There  are  a  good  many  more  out- 
side of  it  than  in  it.  The  celestials  do  not  monopolize 
the  pipe.  In  Mott  Street  there  is  no  need  of  them.  Xot 
a  Chinese  home  or  burrow  there,  but  has  its  bunk  and  its 
lay-out,  where  they  can  be  enjoyed  safe  from  police  inter- 
ference. The  Chinaman  smokes  opium  as  Caucasians 
smoke  tobacco,  and  apparently  with  little  worse  effect 
upon  himself.  But  woe  unto  the  white  victim  upon  which 
his  pitiless  drug  gets  its  grip  ! 

The  bloused  pedlars  who,  with  arms  buried  half  to  the 
elbow  in  their  trousers'  pockets,  lounge  behind  their  stock 
of  watermelon  seed  and  sugar-cane,  cut  in  lengths  to  suit 
the  purse  of  the  buyer,  disdain  to  offer  the  barbarian  their 
wares.  Chinatown,  that  does  most  things  by  contraries, 
rules  it  holiday  style  to  carry  its  hands  in  its  pockets,  and 
its  denizens  follow  the  fashion,  whether  in  blue  blouse,  in 
gray,  or  in  brown,  with  shining  and  braided  pig-tail  dang- 
ling below  the  knees,  or  with  hair  cropped  short  above  a 
coat  collar  of  "  Melican  "  cut.  All  kinds  of  men  are  met, 
but  no  women— none  at  least  with  almond  eyes.  The 
reason  is  simple :  there  are  none.  A  few,  a  very  few, 
Chinese  merchants  have  wives  of  their  own  color,  but 
they  are  seldom  or  never  seen  in  the  street.  The  "  wives  " 
of  Chinatown  are  of  a  different  stock  that  comes  closer 
home. 

From  the  teeming  tenements  to  the  right  and  left  of  it 
come  the  white  slaves  of  its  dens  of  vice  and  their  infernal 
drug,  that  have  infused  into  the  "  Bloody  Sixth"  Ward 
a  subtler  poison  than  ever  the  stale-beer  dives  knew,  or 
the  "  sudden  death "  of  the  Old  Brewery.  There  are 
houses,  dozens  of  them,  in  Mott  and  Pell  Streets,  that  are 
literally  jammed,  from  the  "joint"  in  the  cellar  to  the 
attic,  with  these  hapless  victims  of  a  passion  which,  once 


96 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


acquired,  demands  the  sacrifice  of  every  instinct  of  decen- 
cy to  its  insatiate  desire.  There  is  a  church  in  Mott  Street, 
at  the  entrance  to  Chinatown,  that  stands  as  a  barrier  be- 
tween it  and  the  tenements  beyond.  Its  young  men  have 
waged  unceasing  war  upon  the  monstrous  wickedness  for 
years,  but  with  very  little  real  result.  I  have  in  mind  a 
house  in  Pell  Street  that  has  been  raided  no  end  of  times 
by  the  police,  and  its  population  emptied  upon  Blackwell's 
Island,  or  into  the  reformatories,  yet  is  to-day  honey- 
combed with  scores  of  the  conventional  households  of 
the  Chinese  quarter :  the  men  worshippers  of  Joss ;  the 
women,  all  white,  girls  hardly  yet  grown  to  womanhood, 
worshipping  nothing  save  the  pipe  that  has  enslaved  them 
body  and  soul.  Easily  tempted  from  homes  that  have  no 
claim  upon  the  name,  they  rarely  or  never  return.  Mott 
Street  gives  up  its  victims  only  to  the  Charity  Hospital  or 
the  Potter's  Field.  Of  the  depth  of  their  fall  no  one  is 
more  thoroughly  aware  than  these  girls  themselves ;  no 
one  less  concerned  about  it.  The  calmness  with  which 
they  discuss  it,  while  insisting  illogically  upon  the  fiction 
of  a  marriage  that  deceives  no  one,  is  disheartening. 
Their  misery  is  peculiarly  fond  of  company,  and  an 
amount  of  visiting  goes  on  in  these  households  that  makes 
it  extremely  difficult  for  the  stranger  to  untangle  them. 
I  came  across  a  company  of  them  "  hitting  the  pipe  "  to- 
gether, on  a  tour  through  their  dens  one  night  with  the 
police  captain  of  the  precinct.  The  girls  knew  him,  called 
him  by  name,  offered  him  a  pipe,  and  chatted  with  him 
about  the  incidents  of  their  acquaintance,  how  many  times 
he  had  "  sent  them  up,"  and  their  chances  of  "  lasting  " 
much  longer.  There  was  no  shade  of  regret  in  their 
voices,  nothing  but  utter  indifference  and  surrender. 
One  thing  about  them  wras  conspicuous :  their  scrupu- 


CHIXATOWN. 


97 


lous  neatness.  It  is  the  distinguishing  mark  cf  China- 
town, outwardly  and  physically.  It  is  not  altogether  by 
chance  the  Chinaman  has  chosen  the  laundry  as  his  dis- 
tinctive field.  He  is  by  nature  as  clean  as  the  cat,  which 
he  resembles  in  his  traits  of  cruel  cunning,  and  savage 
fury  when  aroused.  On  this  point  of  cleanliness  he  in- 
sists in  his  domestic  circle,  yielding  in  others  with  crafty 
submissiveness  to  the  caprice  of  the  girls,  who  "  boss  "  him 
in  a  very  independent  manner,  fretting  vengefully  under 
the  yoke  they  loathe,  but  which  they  know  right  well  they 
can  never  shake  off,  once  they  have  put  the  pipe  to  their 
lips  and  given  Mott  Street  a  mortgage  upon  their  souls 
for  all  time.  To  the  priest,  whom  they  call  in  when  the 
poison  racks  the  body,  they  pretend  that  they  are  yet  their 
own  masters ;  but  he  knows  that  it  is  an  idle  boast,  least 
of  all  believed  by  themselves.  As  he  walks  with  them 
the  few  short  steps  to  the  Potter's  Field,  he  hears  the  sad 
story  he  has  heard  told  over  and  over  again,  of  father, 
mother,  home,  and  friends  given  up  for  the  accursed  pipe, 
and  stands  hopeless  and  helpless  before  the  colossal  evil 
for  which  he  knows  no  remedy. 

The  frequent  assertions  of  the  authorities  that  at  least 
no  girls  under  age  are  wrecked  on  this  Chinese  shoal,  are 
disproved  by  the  observation  of  those  who  go  frequently 
among  these  dens,  though  the  smallest  girl  will  invariably, 
and  usually  without  being  asked,  insist  that  she  is  sixteen, 
and  so  of  age  to  choose  the  company  she  keeps.  Such  as- 
sertions are  not  to  be  taken  seriously.  Even  while  I  am 
writing,  the  morning  returns  from  one  of  the  precincts 
that  pass  through  my  hands  report  the  arrest  of  a  China- 
man for  "  inveigling  little  girls  into  his  laundry,"  one  of 
the  hundred  outposts  of  Chinatown  that  are  scattered  all 
over  the  city,  as  the  outer  threads  of  the  spider's  web  that 
7 


98 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


holds  its  prey  fast.  Reference  to  case  No.  39,499  in  this 
year's  report  of  the  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty 
to  Children,  will  discover  one  of  the  much  travelled  roads 
to  Chinatown.  The  girl  whose  story  it  tells  was  thirteen, 
and  one  of  six  children  abandoned  by  a  dissipated  father. 
She  had  been  discharged  from  an  Eighth  Avenue  store, 
where  she  was  employed  as  cash  girl,  and,  being  afraid  to 
tell  her  mother,  floated  about  until  she  landed  in  a  Chin- 
ese laundry.    The  judge  heeded  her  tearful  prayer,  and 


IN  A  CHINESE  JOINT. 


sent  her  home  with  her  mother,  but  she  was  back  again  in 
a  little  while  despite  all  promises  of  reform. 

Her  tyrant  knows  well  that  she  will  come,  and  patiently 
bides  his  time.  When  her  struggles  in  the  web  have 
ceased  at  last,  he  rules  no  longer  with  gloved  hand.  A 
specimen  of  celestial  logic  from  the  home  circle  at  this 
period  came  home  to  me  with  a  personal  application,  one 
evening  when  I  attempted,  with  a  policeman,  to  stop  a 
Chinaman  whom  we  found  beating  his  white  "  wife " 
with  a  broom-handle  in  a  Mott  Street  cellar.    He  was 


CHINATOWN, 


99 


angry  at  our  interference,  and  declared  vehemently  that 
she  was  "  bad." 

"  S'ppose  your  wifee  bad,  you  no  lickee  her  ?  "  he  asked, 
as  if  there  could  be  no  appeal  from  such  a  common- 
sense  proposition  as  that.  My  assurance  that  I  did  not, 
that  such  a  thing  could  not  occur  to  me,  struck  him  dumb 
with  amazement.  He  eyed  me  a  while  in  stupid  silence, 
poked  the  linen  in  his  tub,  stole  another  look,  and  made 
up  his  mind.  A  gleam  of  intelligence  shone  in  his  eye, 
and  pity  and  contempt  struggled  in  his  voice.  "  Then,  I 
guess,  she  lickee  you,"  he  said. 

No  small  commotion  was  caused  in  Chinatown  once 
upon  the  occasion  of  an  expedition  I  undertook,  accom- 
panied by  a  couple  of  police  detectives,  to  photograph 
Joss.  Some  conscienceless  wag  spread  the  report,  after 
we  were  gone,  that  his  picture  was  wanted  for  the  Rogues' 
Gallery  at  Headquarters.  The  insult  was  too  gross  to  be 
passed  over  without  atonement  of  some  sort.  Two  roast 
pigs  made  matters  all  right  with  his  offended  majesty  of 
Mott  Street,  and  with  his  attendant  priests,  who  bear  a 
very  practical  hand  in  the  worship  by  serving  as  the 
divine  stomach,  as  it  were.  They  eat  the  good  things  set 
before  their  rice-paper  master,  unless,  as  once  happened, 
some  sacrilegious  tramp  sneaks  in  and  gets  ahead  of  them. 
The  practical  way  in  which  this  people  combine  wor- 
ship with  business  is  certainly  admirable.  I  was  told  that 
the  scrawl  covering  the  wall  on  both  sides  of  the  shrine 
stood  for  the  names  of  the  pillars  of  the  church  or  club 
— the  Joss  House  is  both — that  they  might  have  their  re- 
ward in  this  world,  no  matter  what  happened  to  them  in 
the  next.  There  was  another  inscription  overhead  that 
needed  no  interpreter.  In  familiar  English  letters,  copied 
bodily  from  the  trade  dollar,  was  the  sentiment :  "  In  God 


100 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


we  trust."  The  priest  pointed  to  it  with  undisguised 
pride  and  attempted  an  explanation,  from  which  I  gath- 
ered that  the  inscription  was  intended  as  a  diplomatic 
courtesy,  a  delicate  international  compliment  to  the  "Mel- 
ican  Joss,*'  the  almighty  dollar. 

Chinatown  has  enlisted  the  telegraph  for  the  dissemina- 


THE  OFFICIAL  ORGAN  OF  CHFSATOWN." 


4  tion  of  public  intelligence,  but  it  has  got  hold  of  the  con- 
trivance by  the  wrong  end.  As  the  wires  serve  us  in 
newspaper-making,  so  the  Chinaman  makes  use  of  the 
pole  for  the  same  purpose.  The  telegraph  pole,  of  which 
I  spoke  as  the  real  official  organ  of  Chinatown,  stands  not 
far  from  the  Joss  House  in  Mott  Street,  in  full  view  from 
Chatham  Square.    In  it  centres  the  real  life  of  the  col- 


CHINATOWN. 


101 


on j,  its  gambling  news.  Every  day  yellow  and  red  notices 
are  posted  upon  it  by  unseen  hands,  announcing  that  in 
such  and  such  a  cellar  a  fan  tan  game  will  be  running  that 
night,  or  warning  the  faithful  that  a  raid  is  intended  on 
this  or  that  game  through  the  machination  of  a  rival  in- 
terest. A  constant  stream  of  plotting  and  counter-plotting 
makes  up  the  round  of  Chinese  social  and  political  exis- 
tence. I  do  not  pretend  to  understand  the  exact  political 
structure  of  the  colony,  or  its  internal  government.  Even 
discarding  as  idle  the  stories  of  a  secret  cabal  with  power 
over  life  and  death,  and  authority  to  enforce  its  decrees, 
there  is  evidence  enough  that  the  Chinese  consider  them- 
selves subject  to  the  laws  of  the  land  only  when  submis- 
sion is  unavoidable,  and  that  they  are  governed  by  a  code 
of  their  own,  the  very  essence  of  which  is  rejection  of  all 
other  authority  except  under  compulsion.  If  now  and 
then  some  horrible  crime  in  the  Chinese  colony,  a  murder 
of  such  hideous  ferocity  as  one  I  have  a  very  vivid  recol- 
lection of,  where  the  murderer  stabbed  his  victim  (both 
Chinamen,  of  course)  in  the  back  with  a  meat-knife, 
plunging  it  in  to  the  hilt  no  less  than  seventeen  times, 
arouses  the  popular  prejudice  to  a  suspicion  that  it  was 
"  ordered,"  only  the  suspected  themselves  are  to  blame, 
for  they  appear  to  rise  up  as  one  man  to  shield  the  crim- 
inal. The  difficulty  of  tracing  the  motive  of  the  crime 
and  the  murderer  is  extreme,  and  it  is  the  rarest  of  all  re- 
sults that  the  police  get  on  the  track  of  either.  The 
obstacles  in  the  way  of  hunting  down  an  Italian  murderer 
are  as  nothing  to  the  opposition  encountered  in  China- 
town. Xor  is  the  failure  of  the  pursuit  wholly  to  be 
ascribed  to  the  familiar  fact  that  to  Caucasian  eyes  "  all 
Chinamen  look  alike,"  but  rather  to  their  acting  "  alike," 
in  a  body,  to  defeat  discovery  at  any  cost. 


102 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


Withal  the  police  give  the  Chinese  the  name  of  being 
the  "  quietest  people  down  there,"  meaning  in  the  notori- 
ously turbulent  Sixth  Ward  ;  and  they  are.  The  one 
thing  they  desire  above  all  is  to  be  let  alone,  a  very  nat- 
ural wish  perhaps,  considering  all  the  circumstances.  If 
it  were  a  laudable,  or  even  an  allowable  ambition  that 
prompts  it,  they  might  be  humored  with  advantage,  prob- 
ably, to  both  sides.  But  the  facts  show  too  plainly  that 
it  is  not,  and  that  in  their  very  exclusiveness  and  reserve 
they  are  a  constant  and  terrible  menace  to  society,  wholly 
regardless  of  their  influence  upon  the  industrial  problems 
which  their  presence  confuses.  The  severest  official  scru- 
tiny, the  harshest  repressive  measures  are  justifiable  in 
Chinatown,  orderly  as  it  appears  on  the  surface,  even  more 
than  in  the  Bend,  and  the  case  is  infinitely  more  urgent. 
To  the  peril  that  threatens  there  all  the  senses  are  alert, 
whereas  the  poison  that  proceeds  from  Mott  Street  puts 
mind  and  body  to  sleep,  to  work  out  its  deadly  purpose  in 
the  corruption  of  the  soul. 

This  again  may  be  set  down  as  a  harsh  judgment.  I 
may  be  accused  of  inciting  persecution  of  an  unoffending 
people.  Far  from  it.  Granted,  that  the  Chinese  are  in 
no  sense  a  desirable  element  of  the  population,  that  they 
serve  no  useful  purpose  here,  whatever  they  may  have 
done  elsewhere  in  other  days,  yet  to  this  it  is  a  sufficient 
answer  that  they  are  here,  and  that,  having  let  them  in,  we 
must  make  the  best  of  it.  This  is  a  time  for  very  plain 
speaking  on  this  subject.  .Rather  than  banish  the  China- 
man, I  would  have  the  door  opened  wider — for  his  wife  ; 
make  it  a  condition  of  his  coming  or  staying  that  he  bring 
his  wife  with  him.  Then,  at  least,  he  might  not  be  what 
he  now  is  and  remains,  a  homeless  stranger  among  us. 
Upon  this  hinges  the  real  Chinese  question,  in  our  city  at 


CHINATOWN". 


103 


all  events,  as  I  see  it.  To  assert  that  the  victims  of  his 
drug  and  his  base  passions  would  go  to  the  bad  anyhow,  is 
begging  the  question.  They  might  and  they  might  not. 
The  chance  is  the  span  between  life  and  death.  From 
any  other  form  of  dissipation  than  that  for  which  China- 
town stands  there  is  recovery;  for  the  victims  of  any  other 
vice,  hope.  For  these  there  is  neither  hope  nor  recovery  ; 
nothing  but  death — moral,  mental,  and  physical  death. 


CHAPTEK  X. 


JEWTOWN. 


THE  tenements  grow  taller,  and  the  gaps  in  tlieir  ranks 
close  up  rapidly  as  we  cross  the  Bowery  and,  leaving 
Chinatown  and  the  Italians  behind,  invade  the  Hebrew 
quarter.  Baxter  Street,  with  its  interminable  rows  of  old 
clothes  shops  and  its  brigades  of  pullers-in — nicknamed 
"  the  Bay  "  in  honor,  perhaps,  of  the  tars  who  lay  to  there 
after  a  cruise  to  stock  up  their  togs,  or  maybe  after  the 
"schooners"  of  beer  plentifully  bespoke  in  that  latitude — 
Bayard  Street,  with  its  synagogues  and  its  crowds,  gave  us 
a  foretaste  of  it.  No  need  of  asking  here  where  we  are. 
The  jargon  of  the  street,  the  signs  of  the  sidewalk,  the 
manner  and  dress  of  the  people,  their  unmistakable  physi- 
ognomy, betray  tlieir  race  at  every  step.  Men  with  queer 
skull-caps  venerable  beard,  and  the  outlandish  long-skirt- 
ed  kaftan  of  the  Russian  Jew,  elbow  the  ugliest  and  the 
handsomest  women  in  the  land.  The  contrast  is  startling. 
The  old  women  are  hags ;  the  young,  houris.  AVives 
and  mothers  at  sixteen,  at  thirty  they  are  old.  So  thor- 
oughly has  the  chosen  people  crowded  out  the  Gentiles  in 
the  Tenth  TVard  that,  when  the  great  Jewish  holidays 
come  around  every  year,  the  public  schools  in  the  district 
have  practically  to  close  up.  Of  their  thousands  of  pupils 
scarce  a  handful  come  to  school.  Nor  is  there  any  suspi- 
cion that  the  rest  are  playing  hookey.  They  stay  honestly 


JEWTOTOf. 


105 


home  to  celebrate.  There  is  no  mistaking  it :  we  are  in 
Jewtown. 

It  is  said  that  nowhere  in  the  world  are  so  many  peo- 
ple crowded  together  on  a  square  mile  as  here.  The  av- 
erage five-story  tenement  adds  a  story  or  two  to  its  stature 
in  Ludlow  Street  and  an  extra  building  on  the  rear  lot, 
and  yet  the  sign  "  To  Let  "  is  the  rarest  of  all  there.  Here 
is  one  seven  stories  high.  The  sanitary  policeman  whose 
beat  this  is  will  tell  you  that  it  contains  thirty-six  families, 
but  the  term  has  a  widely  different  meaning  here  and  on 
the  avenues.  In  this  house,  where  a  case  of  small -pox 
was  reported,  there  were  fifty-eight  babies  and  thirty- 
eight  children  that  were  over  five  years  of  age.  In  Essex 
Street  two  small  rooms  in  a  six-story  tenement  were  made 
to  hold  a  "  family"  of  father  and  mother,  twelve  children, 
and  six  boarders.  The  boarder  plays  as  important  a  part 
in  the  domestic  economy  of  Jewtown  as  the  lodger  in  the 
Mulberry  Street  Bend.  These  are  samples  of  the  packing 
of  the  population  that  has  run  up  the  record  here  to  the 
rate  of  three  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  per  square  mile. 
The  densest  crowding  of  Old  London,  I  pointed  out  before, 
never  got  beyond  a  hundred  and  seventy-five  thousand. 
Even  the  alley  is  crowded  out.  Through  dark  hallways 
and  filthy  cellars,  crowded,  as  is  every  foot  of  the  street, 
with  dirty  children,  the  settlements  in  the  rear  are 
reached.  Thieves  know  how  to  find  them  when  pursued 
by  the  police,  and  the  tramps  that  sneak  in  on  chilly 
nights  to  fight  for  the  warm  spot  in  the  yard  over  some 
baker's  oven.  They  are  out  of  place  in  this  hive  of  busy 
industry,  and  they  know  it.  It  has  nothing  in  common 
with  them  or  with  their  philosophy  of  life,  that  the  world 
owes  the  idler  a  living.  Life  here  means  the  hardest  kind 
of  work  almost  from  the  cradle.    The  world  as  a  debtor 


106 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


lias  no  credit  in  Jewtown.  Its  promise  to  pay  wouldn't 
buy  one  of  the  old  hats  that  are  hawked  about  Hester 
Street,  unless  backed  by  security  representing  labor  done 
at  lowest  market  rates.  But  this  army  of  workers  must 
have  bread.  It  is  cheap  and  filling,  and  bakeries  abound. 
Wherever  they  are  in  the  tenements  the  tramp  will  skulk 
in,  if  he  can.  There  is  such  a  tramps'  roost  in  the  rear  of 
a  tenement  near  the  lower  end  of  Ludlow  Street,  that  is 
never  without  its  tenants  in  winter.    By  a  judicious  prac- 


A  TRAMP'S  NEST  IN  LUDLOW  STREET. 


tice  of  flopping  over  on  the  stone  pavement  at  intervals, 
and  thus  warming  one  side  at  a  time,  and  with  an  empty 
box  to  put  the  feet  in,  it  is  possible  to  keep. reasonably 
comfortable  there  even  on  a  rainy  night.  In  summer  the 
yard  is  the  only  one  in  the  neighborhood  that  does  not 
do  duty  as  a  public  dormitory. 

Thrift  is  the  watchword  of  Jewtown,  as  of  its  people  the 
world  over.  It  is  at  once  its  strength  and  its  fatal  weak- 
ness, its  cardinal  virtue  and  its  foul  disgrace.  Become  an 
over-mastering  passion  with  these  people  who  come  here 


JEWTOWX. 


107 


in  droves  from  Eastern  Europe  to  escape  persecution,  from 
which  freedom  could  be  bought  only  with  gold,  it  has 
enslaved  them  in  bondage  worse  than  that  from  which 
they  fled.  Money  is  their  God.  Life  itself  is  of  little 
value  compared  with  even  the  leanest  bank  account.  In 
no  other  spot  does  life  wear  so  intensely  bald  and  materi- 
alistic an  aspect  as  in  Ludlow  Street.  Over  and  over  again 
I  have  met  with  instances  of  these  Polish  or  Russian  Jews 
deliberately  starving  themselves  to  the  point  of  physical 
exhaustion,  while  working  night  and  day  at  a  tremendous 
pressure  to  save  a  little  money.  An  avenging  Xemesis 
pursues  this  headlong  hunt  for  wealth  ;  there  is  no  worse 
paid  class  anywhere.  I  once  put  the  question  to  one  of 
their  own  people,  who,  being  a  pawnbroker,  and  an  unu- 
sually intelligent  and  charitable  one,  certainly  enjoyed  the 
advantage  of  a  practical  view  of  the  situation  :  "  Whence 
the  many  wretchedly  poor  people  in  such  a  colony  of 
workers,  where  poverty,  from  a  misfortune,  has  become 
a  reproach,  dreaded  as  the  plague  ?  " 

"  Immigration/'  he  said,  "  brings  us  a  lot.  In  five 
years  it  has  averaged  twenty-five  thousand  a  year,  of 
which  more  that  seventy  per  cent,  have  stayed  in  Xew 
York.  Half  of  them  require  and  receive  aid  from  the 
Hebrew  Charities  from  the  very  start,  lest  they  starve. 
That  is  one  explanation.  There  is  another  class  than  the 
one  that  cannot  get  work :  those  who  have  had  too  much 
of  it ;  who  have  worked  and  hoarded  and  lived,  crowded 
together  like  pigs,  on  the  scantiest  fare  and  the  worst  to 
be  got,  bound  to  save  whatever  their  earnings,  until,  worn 
out,  they  could  work  no  longer.  Then  their  hoards  were 
soon  exhausted.  That  is  their  story."  And  I  knew  that 
what  he  said  was  true. 

Penury  and  poverty  are  wedded  everywhere  to  dirt  and 


108 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


disease,  and  Jewtown  is  no  exception.  It  could  not  well 
be  otherwise  in  such  crowds,  considering  especially  their 
low  intellectual  status.  The  managers  of  the  Eastern 
Dispensary,  which  is  in  the  very  heart  of  their  district, 
told  the  whole  story  when  they  said :  "  The  diseases  these 
people  suffer  from  are  not  due  to  intemperance  or  immo- 
rality, but  to  ignorance,  want  of  suitable  food,  and  the 
foul  air  in  which  they  live  and  work."  *  The  homes  of 
the  Hebrew  quarter  are  its  workshops  also.  Reference 
will  be  made  to  the  economic  conditions  under  which  they 
work  in  a  succeeding  chapter.  Here  we  are  concerned 
simply  with  the  fact.  You  are  made  fully  aware  of  it  be- 
fore you  have  travelled  the  length  of  a  single  block  in 
any  of  these  East  Side  streets,  by  the  whir  of  a  thousand 
sewing-machines,  worked  at  high  pressure  from  earliest 
dawn  till  mind  and  muscle  give  out  together.  Every 
member  of  the  family,  from  the  youngest  to  the  oldest, 
bears  a  hand,  shut  in  the  qualmy  rooms,  where  meals  are 
cooked  and  clothing  washed  and  dried  besides,  the  live- 
long day.  It  is  not  unusual  to  find  a  dozen  persons — men, 
women,  and  children — at  work  in  a  single  small  room.  The 
fact  accounts  for  the  contrast  that  strikes  with  wonder  the 
observer  who  comes  across  from  the  Bend.  Over  there 
the  entire  population  seems  possessed  of  an  uncontrolla- 
ble impulse  to  get  out  into  the  street ;  here  all  its  ener- 
gies appear  to  be  bent  upon  keeping  in  and  away  from  it. 
Xot  that  the  streets  are  deserted.  The  overflow  from 
these  tenements  is  enough  to  make  a  crowd  anywhere. 
The  children  alone  would  do  it.  Xot  old  enough  to  work 
and  no  room  for  play,  that  is  their  story.  In  the  home 
the  child's  place  is  usurped  by  the  lodger,  who  performs 
the  service  of  the  Irishman's  pig — pays  the  rent.  In  the 
*  Report  of  Eastern  Dispensary  for  1889. 


JEWTOTHST. 


109 


street  the  army  of  hucksters  crowd  him  out.  Typhus 
fever  and  small-pox  are  bred  here,  and  help  solve  the 
question  what  to  do  with  him.  Filth  diseases  both,  they 
sprout  naturally  among  the  hordes  that  bring  the  germs 
with  them  from  across  the  sea,  and  whose  first  instinct  is 
to  hide  their  sick  lest  the  authorities  carry  them  off  to  the 
hospital  to  be  slaughtered,  as  they  firmly  believe.  The 
health  officers  are  on  constant  and  sharp  lookout  for  hid- 
den fever-nests.  Considering  that  half  of  the  ready-made 
clothes  that  are  sold  in  the  big  stores,  if  not  a  good  deal 
more  than  half,  are  made  in  these  tenement  rooms,  this  is 
not  excessive  caution.  It  has  happened  more  than  once 
that  a  child  recovering  from  small-pox,  and  in  the  most 
contagious  stage  of  the  disease,  has  been  found  crawling 
among  heaps  of  half-finished  clothing  that  the  next  day 
would  be  offered  for  sale  on  the  counter  of  a  Broadway 
store  ;  or  that  a  typhus  fever  patient  has  been  discovered 
in  a  room  whence  perhaps  a  hundred  coats  had  been  sent 
home  that  week,  each  one  with  the  wearer's  death-war- 
rant, unseen  and  unsuspected,  basted  in  the  lining. 

The  health  officers  call  the  Tenth  the  typhus  ward  ;  in 
the  office  where  deaths  are  registered  it  passes  as  the 
"suicide  ward,"  for  reasons  not  hard  to  understand;  and 
among  the  police  as  the  "  crooked  ward,"  on  account  of 
the  number  of  "  crooks,"  petty  thieves  and  their  allies,  the 
"  fences,"  receivers  of  stolen  goods,  who  find  the  dense 
crowds  congenial.  The  nearness  of  the  Bowery,  the  great 
"  thieves'  highway,"  helps  to  keep  up  the  supply  of  these, 
but  Jewtown  does  not  support  its  dives.  Its  troubles 
with  the  police  are  the  characteristic  crop  of  its  intense 
business  rivalries.  Oppression,  persecution,  have  not 
shorn  the  Jew  of  his  native  combativeness  one  whit.  He 
is  as  ready  to  fight  for  his  rights,  or  what  he  considers  his 


110 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


rights,  in  a  business  transaction — synonymous  generally 
with  his  advantage — as  if  he  had  not  been  robbed  of  them 
for  eighteen  hundred  years.  One  strong  impression  sur- 
vives with  him  from  his  days  of  bondage  :  the  power  of 
the  law.  On  the  slightest  provocation  he  rushes  off  to  in- 
voke it  for  his  protection.  Doubtless  the  sensation  is 
novel  to  him,  and  therefore  pleasing.  The  police  at  the 
Eldridge  Street  station  are  in  a  constant  turmoil  over 
these  everlasting  fights.  Somebody  is  always  denouncing 
somebody  else,  and  getting  his  enemy  or  himself  locked 
up ;  frequently  both,  for  the  prisoner,  when  brought  in, 
has  generally  as  plausible  a  story  to  tell  as  his  accuser,  and 
as  hot  a  charge  to  make.  The  day  closes  on  a  wild  con- 
flict of  rival  interests.  Another  dawns  with  the  prisoner 
in  court,  but  no  complainant.  Over  night  the  case  has 
been  settled  on  a  business  basis,  and  the  police  dismiss 
their  prisoner  in  deep  disgust. 

These  quarrels  have  sometimes  a  comic  aspect.  Thus, 
with  the  numerous  dancing-schools  that  are  scattered 
among  the  synagogues,  often  keeping  them  company  in 
the  same  tenement.  They  are  generally  kept  by  some 
man  who  works  in  the  daytime  at  tailoring,  cigarmaking, 
or  something  else.  The  young  people  in  Jewtown  are 
inordinately  fond  of  dancing,  and  after  their  day's  hard 
work  will  flock  to  these  "  schools "  for  a  night's  recrea- 
tion. But  even  to  their  fun  they  carry  their  business  pre- 
ferences, and  it  happens  that  a  school  adjourns  in  a  body 
to  make  a  general  raid  on  the  rival  establishment  across 
the  street,  w;thout  the  ceremony  of  paying  the  admission 
fee.  Then  the  dance  breaks  up  in  a  general  fight,  in 
which,  likely  enough,  someone  is  badly  hurt.  The  police 
come  in,  as  usual,  and  ring  down  the  curtain. 

Bitter  as  are  his  private  feuds,  it  is  not  until  his  reli- 


112 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


gious  life  is  invaded  that  a  real  inside  view  is  obtained  of 
this  Jew,  whom  the  history  of  Christian  civilization  has 
taught  nothing  but  fear  and  hatred.  There  are  two  or 
three  missions  in  the  district  conducting  a  hopeless  prop- 
agandism  for  the  Messiah  whom  the  Tenth  Ward  re- 
jects,  and  they  attract  occasional  crowds,  who  come  to 
hear  the  Christian  preacher  as  the  Jews  of  old  gathered 
to  hear  the  apostles  expound  the  new  doctrine.  The  re- 
sult is  often  strikingly  similar.  "For  once,"  said  a  certain 
well-known  minister  of  an  uptown  church  to  me,  after 
such  an  experience,  "I felt  justified  in  comparing  myself 
to  Paul  preaching  salvation  to  the  Jews.  They  kept  still 
until  I  spoke  of  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Son  of  God.  Then 
they  got  up  and  fell  to  arguing  among  themselves  and  to 
threatening  me,  until  it  looked  as  if  they  meant  to  take 
me  out  in  Hester  Street  and  stone  me."  As  at  Jerusalem, 
the  Chief  Captain  was  happily  at  hand  with  his  centuvions, 
in  the  person  of  a  sergeant  and  three  policemen,  and  the 
preacher  was  rescued.  So,  in  all  matters  pertaining  to 
their  religious  life  that  tinges  all  their  customs,  they  stand, 
these  East  Side  Jews,  where  the  new  day  that  dawned  on 
Calvary  left  them  standing,  stubbornly  refusing  to  see  the 
light.  A  visit  to  a  Jewish  house  of  mourning  is  like 
bridging  the  gap  of  two  thousand  years.  The  inexpress- 
ibly sad  and  sorrowful  wail  for  the  dead,  as  it  swells  and 
rises  in  the  hush  of  all  sounds  of  life,  comes  back  from  the 
ages  like  a  mournful  echo  of  the  voice  of  Rachel  "  weeping 
for  her  children  and  refusing  to  be  comforted,  because 
they  are  not." 

Attached  to  many  of  the  synagogues,  which  among  the 
poorest  Jews  frequently  consist  of  a  scantily  furnished 
room  in  a  rear  tenement,  with  a  few  wooden  stools  or 
benches  for  the  congregation,  are  Talmudic  schools  that 


JEWTOWN. 


113 


absorb  a  share  of  the  growing  youth.  The  school-master 
is  not  rarely  a  man  of  some  attainments  who  has  been 
stranded  there,  his  native  instinct  for  money-making  hav- 
ing been  smothered  in  the  process  that  has  made  of  him  a 
learned  man.  It  was  of  such  a  school  in  Eldridge  Street 
that  the  wicked  Isaac  Iacob,  who  killed  his  enemy,  his 
wife,  and  himself  in  one  day,"  was  janitor.  But  the 
majority  of  the  children  seek  the  public  schools,  where 
they  are  received  sometimes  with  some  misgivings  on  the 
part  of  the  teachers,  who  find  it  necessary  to  inculcate 
lessons  of  cleanliness  in  the  worst  cases  by  practical  dem- 
onstration with  wash-bowl  and  soap.  "  He  took  hold 
of  the  soap  as  if  it  were  some  animal,"  said  one  of  these 
teachers  to  me  after  such  an  experiment  upon  a  new 
pupil,  "  and  wiped  three  fingers  across  his  face.  He 
called  that  washing."  In  the  Allen  Street  public  school 
the  experienced  principal  has  embodied  among  the  ele- 
mentary lessons,  to  keep  constantly  before  the  children 
the  duty  that  clearly  lies  next  to  their  hands,  a  character- 
istic exercise.  The  question  is  asked  daily  from  the 
teacher's  desk  :  "  What  must  I  do  to  be  healthy  ?  "  and 
the  whole  school  responds  : 

"  I  must  keep  my  skin  clean, 
Wear  clean  clothes, 
Breathe  pure  air, 
And  live  in  the  sunlight." 

It  seems  little  less  than  biting  sarcasm  to  hear  them  say 
it,  for  to  not  a  few  of  them  all  these  things  are  known 
only  by  name.  In  their  everyday  life  there  is  nothing 
even  to  suggest  any  of  them.  Only  the  demand  of  reli- 
gious custom  has  power  to  make  their  parents  clean  up  at 
stated  intervals,  and  the  young  naturally  are  no  better. 
8 


114 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


As  scholars,  the  children  of  the  most  ignorant  Polish 
Jew  keep  fairly  abreast  of  their  more  favored  playmates, 
until  it  comes  to  mental  arithmetic,  when  they  leave 
them  behind  with  a  bound.  It  is  surprising  to  see  how 
strong  the  instinct  of  dollars  and  cents  is  in  them. 
They  can  count,  and  correctly,  almost  before  they  can 
talk. 

Within  a  few  years  the  police  captured  on  the  East  Side 
a  band  of  firebugs  who  made  a  business  of  setting  fire  to 
tenements  for  the  insurance  on  their  furniture.  There  has, 
unfortunately,  been  some  evidence  in  the  past  year  that 
another  such  conspiracy  is  on  foot.  The  danger  to  which 
these  fiends  expose  their  fellow- tenants  is  appalling.  A 
fire-panic  at  night  in  a  tenement,  by  no  means  among 
the  rare  experiences  in  New  York,  with  the  surging,  half- 
smothered  crowds  on  stairs  and  fire-escapes,  the  frantic 
mothers  and  crying  children,  the  wild  struggle  to  oave  the 
little  that  is  their  all,  is  a  horror  that  has  few  parallels  in 
human  experience. 

I  cannot  think  without  a  shudder  of  one  such  scene  in  a 
First  Avenue  tenement.  It  was  in  the  middle  of  the  night. 
The  fire  had  swept  up  with  sudden  fury  from  a  restaurant 
on  the  street  floor,  cutting  off  escape.  Men  and  women 
threw  themselves  from  the  windows,  or  were  carried  down 
senseless  by  the  firemen.  Thirteen  half-clad,  apparently 
lifeless  bodies  were  laid  on  the  floor  of  an  adjoining  coal- 
office,  and  the  ambulance  surgeons  worked  over  them  with 
sleeves  rolled  up  to  the  elbows.  A  half -grown  girl  with 
a  baby  in  her  arms  walked  about  among  the  dead  and 
dying  with  a  stunned,  vacant  look,  singing  in  a  low,  scared 
voice  to  the  child.  One  of  the  doctors  took  her  arm  to 
lead  her  out,  and  patted  the  cheek  of  the  baby  soothingly. 
It  was  cold.    The  baby  had  been  smothered  with  its 


JEWTOVTX. 


115 


father  and  mother ;  but  the  girl,  her  sister,  did  not  know 
it.    Her  reason  had  fled. 

Thursday  night  and  Friday  morning  are  bargain  days 
in  the  "  Pig-market."  Then  is  the  time  to  study  the  ways 
of  this  peculiar  people  to  the  best  advantage.  A  common 
pulse  beats  in  the  quarters  of  the  Polish  Jews  and  in  the 
Mulberry  Bend,  though  they  have  little  else  in  common. 
Life  over  yonder  in  fine  weather  is  a  perpetual  holiday, 
here  a  veritable  tread-mill  of  industry.  Friday  brings  out 
all  the  latent  color  and  picturesqueness  of  the  Italians,  as 
of  these  Semites.  The  crowds  and  the  common  poverty 
are  the  bonds  of  sympathy  between  them.  The  Pig-mar- 
ket is  in  Hester  Street,  extending  either  way  from  Lud- 
low Street,  and  up  and  down  the  side  streets  two  or  three 
blocks,  as  the  state  of  trade  demands.  The  name  was 
given  to  it  probably  in  derision,  for  pork  is  the  one  ware 
that  is  not  on  sale  in  the  Pig-market.  There  is  scarcely 
anything  else  that  can  be  hawked  from  a  wagon  that  is 
not  to  be  found,  and  at  ridiculously  low  prices.  Bandan- 
nas and  tin  cups  at  two  cents,  peaches  at  a  cent  a  quart, 
"  damaged  "  eggs  for  a  song,  hats  for  a  quarter,  and  spec- 
tacles, warranted  to  suit  the  eye,  at  the  optician's  who  has 
opened  shop  on  a  Hester  Street  door-step,  for  thirty  five 
cents  ;  frowsy-looking  chickens  and  half-plucked  geese, 
hung  by  the  neck  and  protesting  with  wildly  strutting 
feet  even  in  death  against  the  outrage,  are  the  great  staple 
of  the  market.  Half  or  a  quarter  of  a  chicken  can  be 
bought  here  by  those  who  cannot  afford  a  whole.  It  took 
more  than  ten  years  of  persistent  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
sanitary  authorities  to  drive  the  trade  in  live  fowl  from 
the  streets  to  the  fowl-market  on  Gouverneur  Slip,  where 
the  killing  is  now  done  according  to  Jewish  rite  by  priests 
detailed  for  the  purpose  by  the  chief  rabbi.    Since  then 


116 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


they  have  had  a  characteristic  rumpus,  that  involved  the 
entire  Jewish  community,  over  the  fees  for  killing  and  the 
mode  of  collecting  them.  Here  is  a  woman  churning 
horse-radish  on  a  machine  she  has  chained  and  padlocked 
to  a  tree  on  the  sidewalk,  lest  someone  steal  it.  Beside 
her  a  butcher's  stand  with  cuts  at  prices  the  avenues  never 
dreamed  of.  Old  coats  are  hawked  for  fifty  cents,  "  as 
good  as  new,"  and  "pants" — there  are  no  trousers  in 
Jewtown,  only  pants — at  anything  that  can  be  got. 
There  is  a  knot  of  half  a  dozen  "  pants "  pedlars  in  the 
middle  of  the  street,  twice  as  many  men  of  their  own 
race  fingering  their  wares  and  plucking  at  the  seams 
with  the  anxious  scrutiny  of  would-be  buyers,  though 
none  of  them  has  the  least  idea  of  investing  in  a  pair. 
Yes,  stop  !  This  baker,  fresh  from  his  trough,  bare-headed 
and  with  bare  arms,  has  made  an  offer  :  for  this  pair  thirty 
cents  ;  a  dollar  and  forty  was  the  price  asked.  The  ped- 
lar shrugs  his  shoulders,  and  turns  up  his  hands  with  a 
half  pitying,  wholly  indignant  air.  What  does  the  baker 
take  him  for  ?  Such  pants  — .  The  baker  has  turned  to 
go.  With  a  jump  like  a  panther's,  the  man  with  the 
pants  has  him  by  the  sleeve.  Will  he  give  eighty  cents  ? 
Sixty  ?  ftftj  ?  So  help  him,  they  are  dirt  cheap  at  that. 
Lose,  will  he,  on  the  trade,  lose  all  the  profit  of  his  day's 
pedling.  The  baker  goes  on  unmoved.  Forty  then  ? 
What,  not  forty  ?  Take  them  then  for  thirty,  and  wreck 
the  life  of  a  poor  man.  And  the  baker  takes  them  and 
goes,  well  knowing  that  at  least  twenty  cents  of  the  thirty, 
two  hundred  per  cent.,  were  clear  profit,  if  indeed  the 
"  pants  "  cost  the  pedlar  anything 

The  suspender  pedlar  is  the  mystery  of  the  Pig-market, 
omnipresent  and  unfathomable.  He  is  met  at  every  step 
with  his  wares  dangling  over  his  shoulder,  down  his  back, 


118 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


and  in  front.  Millions  of  suspenders  thus  perambulate 
Jewtown  all  day  on  a  sort  of  dress  parade.  Why  suspen- 
ders, is  the  puzzle,  and  where  do  they  all  go  to  ?  The 
"  pants  "  of  Jewtown  hang  down  with  a  common  accord, 
as  if  they  had  never  known  the  support  of  suspenders.  It 
appears  to  be  as  characteristic  a  trait  of  the  race  as  the 
long  beard  and  the  Sabbath  silk  hat  of  ancient  pedigree. 
1  have  asked  again  and  again.  No  one  has  ever  been  able 
to  tell  me  what  becomes  of  the  suspenders  of  Jewtown. 
Perhaps  they  are  hung  up  as  bric-a-brac  in  its  homes,  or 
laid  away  and  saved  up  as  the  equivalent  of  cash.  I  can- 
not tell.  I  only  know  that  more  suspenders  are  hawked 
about  the  Pig-market  every  day  than  would  supply  the 
whole  of  New  York  for  a  year,  were  they  all  bought  and 
turned  to  use. 

The  crowds  that  jostle  each  other  at  the  wagons  and 
about  the  sidewalk  shops,  where  a  gutter  plank  cn  two 
ash-barrels  does  duty  for  a  counter  !  Pushing,  struggling, 
babbling,  and  shouting  in  foreign  tongues,  a  veritable 
Babel  of  confusion.  An  English  word  falls  upon  the  ear 
almost  with  a  sense  of  shock,  as  something  unexpected 
and  strange.  In  the  midst  of  it  all  there  is  a  sudden  wild 
scattering,  a  hustling  of  things  from  the  street  into  dark 
cellars,  into  back-yards  and  by-ways,  a  slamming  and 
locking  of  doors  hidden  under  the  improvised  shelves  and 
counters.  The  health  officers'  cart  is  coming  down  the 
street,  preceded  and  followed  by  stalwart  policemen,  who 
shovel  up  with  scant  ceremony  the  eatables — musty  bread, 
decayed  fish  i*nd  stale  vegetables — indifferent  to  the  curses 
that  are  showered  on  them  from  stoops  and  windows,  and 
carry  them  off  to  the  dump.  In  the  wake  of  the  wagon, 
as  it  makes  its  way  to  the  East  River  after  the  raid,  fol- 
low a  line  of  despoiled  hucksters  shouting  defiance  from  a 


JEWTOW2*. 


119 


safe  distance.  Their  clamor  dies  away  with  the  noise  of 
the  market.  The  endless  panorama  of  the  tenements, 
rows  upon  rows,  between  stony  streets,  stretches  to  the 
north,  to  the  south,  and  to  the  west  as  far  as  the  eye 
reaches. 


CHAPTER  XL 


THE  SWEATERS  OF  JEWTOWN. 

ANYTHING  like  an  exhaustive  discussion  of  the  eco* 
nomical  problem  presented  by  the  Tenth  Ward  * 
is  beset  by  difficulties  that  increase  in  precise  proportion 
to  the  efforts  put  forth  to  remove  them,  I  have  too  vivid 
a  recollection  of  weary  days  and  nights  spent  in  those 
stewing  tenements,  trying  to  get  to  the  bottom  of  the  vex- 
atious question  only  to  find  myself  in  the  end  as  far  from 
the  truth  as  at  the  beginning,  asking  with  rising  wrath 
PilaWs  question,  "  What  is  truth  ?  "  to  attempt  to  weary 
the  reader  by  dragging  him  with  me  over  that  sterile  and 
unprofitable  ground.  'Nov  are  these  pages  the  place  for 
such  a  discussion.  In  it,  let  me  confess  it  at  once  and 
have  done  with  it,  I  should  be  like  the  blind  leading  the 
blind  ;  between  the  real  and  apparent  poverty,  the  hidden 
hoards  and  the  unhesitating  mendacity  of  these  people, 
where  they  conceive  their  interests  to  be  concerned  in  one 
way  or  another,  the  reader  and  I  would  fall  together  into 
the  ditch  of  doubt  and  conjecture  in  which  I  have  found 
company  before. 

The  facts  that  lie  on  the  surface  indicate  the  causes  as 
clearly  as  the  nature  of  the  trouble.    In  effect  both  have 

*  I  refer  to  the  Tenth  Ward  always  as  typical.  The  district  embraced 
in  the  discussion  really  includes  the  Thirteenth  Ward,  and  in  a  growing 
sense  large  portions  of  the  Seventh  and  contiguous  wards  as  well. 


THE  SWEATEES  OF  JEWTOWN. 


121 


been  already  stated.  A  friend  of  mine  who  manufactures 
cloth  once  boasted  to  me  that  nowadays,  on  cheap  cloth- 
ing, New  York  "  beats  the  world."  "  To  what,"  I  asked, 
"  do  you  attribute  it  ?  "  "  To  the  cutter's  long  knife  *  and 
the  Polish  Jew,"  he  said.  Which  of  the  two  has  cut 
deepest  into  the  workman's  wages  is  not  a  doubtful  ques- 
tion. Practically  the  Jew  has  monopolized  the  business 
since  the  battle  between  East  Broadway  and  Broadway 
ended  in  a  complete  victory  for  the  East  Side  and  cheap 
labor,  and  transferred  to  it  the  control  of  the  trade  in 
cheap  clothing.  Yet,  not  satisfied  with  having  won  the 
field,  he  strives  as  hotly  with  his  own  for  the  profit  of 
half  a  cent  as  he  fought  with  his  Christian  competitor 
for  the  dollar.  If  the  victory  is  a  barren  one,  the  blame 
is  his  own.  His  price  is  not  what  he  can  get,  but  the 
lowest  he  can  live  for  and  underbid  his  neighbor.  Just 
what  that  means  we  shall  see.  The  manufacturer  knows 
it,  and  is  not  slow  to  take  advantage  of  his  knowledge. 
He  makes  him  hungry  for  work  by  keeping  it  from  him 
as  long  as  possible ;  then  drives  the  closest  bargain  he  can 
with  the  sweater. 

Many  harsh  things  have  been  said  of  the  "  sweater," 
that  really  apply  to  the  system  in  which  he  is  a  necessary, 
logical  link.  It  can  at  least  be  said  of  him  that  he  is  no 
worse  than  the  conditions  that  created  him.  The  sweater 
is  simply  the  middleman,  the  sub-contractor,  a  workman 
like  his  fellows,  perhaps  with  the  single  distinction  from 
the  rest  that  he  knows  a  little  English  ;  perhaps  not  even 
that,  but  with  the  accidental  possession  of  two  or  three 
sewing-machines,  or  of  credit  enough  to  hire  them,  as  his 
capital,  who  drums  up  work  among  the  clothing-houses. 

*  An  invention  that  cuts  many  garments  at  once,  where  the  scissors 
could  cut  only  a  few. 


122 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


Of  workmen  lie  can  always  get  enough.  Every  ship-load 
from  German  ports  brings  them  to  his  door  in  droves, 
clamoring  for  work.  The  sun  sets  upon  the  day  of  the 
arrival  of  many  a  Polish  Jew,  finding  him  at  work  in  an 
East  Side  tenement,  treading  the  machine  and  "  learning 
the  trade."  Often  there  are  two,  sometimes  three,  sets  of 
sweaters  on  one  job.  They  work  with  the  rest  when  they 
are  not  drumming  up  trade,  driving  their  "  hands  "  as  they 
drive  their  machine,  for  all  they  are  worth,  and  making  a 
profit  on  their  work,  of  course,  though  in  most  cases  not 
nearly  as  extravagant  a  percentage,  probably,  as  is  often 
supposed.  If  it  resolves  itself  into  a  margin  of  five  or  six 
cents,  or  even  less,  on  a  dozen  pairs  of  boys'  trousers,  for 
instance,  it  is  nevertheless  enough  to  make  the  contractor 
with  his  thrifty  instincts  independent.  The  workman 
growls,  not  at  the  hard  labor,  or  poor  pay,  but  over  the 
pennies  another  is  coining  out  of  his  sweat,  and  on  the 
first  opportunity  turns  sweater  himself,  and  takes  his  re- 
venge by  driving  an  even  closer  bargain  than  his  rival 
tyrant,  thus  reducing  his  profits. 

The  sweater  knows  well  that  the  isolation  of  the  work- 
man in  his  helpless  ignorance  is  his  sure  foundation,  and 
he  has  done,  what  he  could — with  merciless  severity  where 
he  could — to  smother  every  symptom  of  awakening  intel- 
ligence in  his  slaves.  In  this  effort  to  perpetuate  his  des- 
potism he  has  had  the  effectual  assistance  of  his  own 
system  and  the  sharp  competition  that  keep  the  men  on 
starvation  wages ;  of  their  constitutional  greed,  that  will 
not  permit  thn  sacrifice  of  temporary  advantage,  however 
slight,  for  permanent  good,  and  above  all,  of  the  hungry 
hordes  of  immigrants  to  whom  no  argument  appeals  save 
the  cry  for  bread.  Within  very  recent  times  he  has,  how- 
ever, been  forced  to  partial  surrender  by  the  organization 


THE  SWEATEES  OE  JEWTOWK 


123 


of  the  men  to  a  considerable  extent  into  trades  unions,  and 
by  experiments  in  co-operation,  under  intelligent  lead- 
ership, that  presage  the  sweater's  doom.  But  as  long 
as  the  ignorant  crowds  continue  to  come  and  to  herd  in 
these  tenements,  his  grip  can  never  be  shaken  off.  And 
the  supply  across  the  seas  is  apparently  inexhaustible. 
Every  fresh  persecution  of  the  Russian  or  Polish  Jew  on 
his  native  soil  starts  greater  hordes  hitherward  to  con- 
found economical  problems,  and  recruit  the  sweater's  pha- 
lanx. The  curse  of  bigotry  and  ignorance  reaches  half- 
way across  the  world,  to  sow  its  bitter  seed  in  fertile  soil 
in  the  East  Side  tenements.  If  the  Jew  himself  was  to 
blame  for  the  resentment  he  aroused  over  there,  he  is 
amply  punished.  He  gathers  the  first-fruits  of  the  har- 
vest here. 

The  bulk  of  the  sweater's  work  is  done  in  the  tenements, 
which  the  law  that  regulates  factory  labor  does  not  reach. 
To  the  factories  themselves  that  are  taking  the  place  of  the 
rear  tenements  in  rapidly  growing  numbers,  letting  in 
bigger  day-ci  owds  than  those  the  health  officers  banished, 
the  tenement  shops  serve  as  a  supplement  through  which 
the  law  is  successfully  evaded.  Ten  hours  is  the  legal 
work-day  in  the  factories,  and  nine  o'clock  the  closing 
hour  at  the  latest.  Forty-five  minutes  at  least  must  be 
allowed  for  dinner,  and  children  under  sixteen  must  not 
be  employed  unless  they  can  read  and  write  English  ;  none 
at  all  under  fourteen.  The  very  fact  that  such  a  law 
should  stand  on  the  statute  book,  shows  how  desperate  the 
plight  of  these  people.  But  the  tenement  has  defeated 
its  benevolent  purpose.  In  it  the  child  works  unchallenged 
from  the  day  he  is  old  enough  to  pull  a  thread.  There  is 
no  such  thing  as  a  dinner  hour;  men  and  women  eat  while 
they  work,  and  the  "  day  "  is  lengthened  at  both  ends  far 


124  HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


into  the  night.  Factory  hands  take  their  work  with  them 
at  the  close  of  the  lawful  day  to  eke  out  their  scanty  earn- 
ings by  working  overtime  at  home.  Little  chance  on  this 
ground  for  the  campaign  of  education  that  alone  can  bring 
the  needed  relief ;  small  wonder  that  there  are  whole 
settlements  on  this  East  Side  where  English  is  practically 
an  unknown  tongue,  though  the  people  be  both  willing  and 
anxious  to  learn.  "  When  shall  we  find  time  to  learn  ?  " 
asked  one  of  them  of  me  once.    I  owe  him  the  answer  yet. 

Take  the  Second  Avenue  Elevated  Railroad  at  Chatham 
Square  and  ride  up  half  a  mile  through  the  sweaters'  dis- 
trict. Every  open  window  of  the  big  tenements,  that 
stand  like  a  continuous  brick  wall  on  both  sides  of  the 
way,  gives  you  a  glimpse  of  one  of  these  shops  as  the  train 
speeds  by.  Men  and  women  bending  over  their  machines, 
or  ironing  clothes  at  the  window,  half-naked.  Proprieties 
do  not  count  on  the  East  Side ;  nothing  counts  that  can- 
not be  converted  into  hard  cash.  The  road  is  like  a  big 
gangway  through  an  endless  work-room  where  vast  multi- 
tudes are  forever  laboring.  Morning,  noon,  or  night,  it 
makes  no  difference ;  the  scene  is  always  the  same.  At 
Eivington  Street  let  us  get  off  and  continue  our  trip  on 
foot.  It  is  Sunday  evening  west  of  the  Bowery.  Here, 
under  the  rule  of  Mosaic  law,  the  week  of  work  is  under 
full  headway,  its  first  day  far  spent.  The  hucksters' 
wagons  are  absent  or  stand  idle  at  the  curb  ;  the  saloons 
admit  the  thirsty  crowds  through  the  side-door  labelled 
"  Family  Entrance ; "  a  tin  sign  in  a  store-window  an- 
nounces that  ?  "  Sunday  School "  gathers  in  stray  children 
of  the  new  dispensation  ;  but  beyond  these  things  there 
is  little  to  suggest  the  Christian  Sabbath.  Men  stagger 
along  the  sidewalk  groaning  under  heavy  burdens  of  un- 
sewn  garments,  or  enormous  black  bags  stuffed  full  of 


THE  SWEATERS  OF  JEWTOWN. 


125 


finished  coats  and  trousers.  Let  us  follow  one  to  his 
home  and  see  how  Sunday  passes  in  a  Ludlow  Street 
tenement. 

Up  two  flights  of  dark  stairs,  three,  four,  with  new 
smells  of  cabbage,  of  onions,  of  frying  fish,  on  every  land- 
ing, whirring  sewing  machines  behind  closed  doors  betray- 
ing what  goes  on  within,  to  the  door  that  opens  to  admit 
the  bundle  and  the  man.  A  sweater,  this,  in  a  small  way. 
Five  men  and  a  woman,  two  young  girls,  not  fifteen,  and 
a  boy  who  says  unasked  that  he  is  fifteen,  and  lies  in  say- 
ing it,  are  at  the  machines  sewing  knickerbockers,  "knee- 
pants  "  in  the  Ludlow  Street  dialect.  The  floor  is  littered 
ankle-deep  with  half-sewn  garments.  In  the  alcove,  on 
a  couch  of  many  dozens  of  "pants"  ready  for  the  fin- 
isher, a  bare-legged  baby  with  pinched  face  is  asleep.  A 
fence  of  piled-up  clothing  keeps  him  from  rolling  off  on 
the  floor.  The  faces,  hands,  and  arms  to  the  elbows  of 
everyone  in  the  room  are  black  with  the  color  of  the  cloth 
on  which  they  are  working.  The  boy  and  the  woman 
alone  look  up  at  our  entrance.  The  girls  shoot  sidelong 
glances,  but  at  a  warning  look  from  the  man  with  the 
bundle  they  tread  their  machines  more  energetically  than 
ever.  The  men  do  not  appear  to  be  aware  even  of  the 
presence  of  a  stranger. 

They  are  "  learners,"  all  of  them,  says  the  woman,  who 
proves  to  be  the  wife  of  the  boss,  and  have  "  come  over" 
only  a  few  weeks  ago.  She  is  disinclined  to  talk  at  first, 
but  a  few  words  in  her  own  tongue  from  our  guide  *  set  her 
fears,  whatever  they  are,  at  rest,  and  she  grows  almost 

*  I  was  always  accompanied  on  these  tours  of  inquiry  by  one  of  their 
own  people  who  knew  of  and  sympathized  with  my  mission.  Without 
that  precaution  my  errand  would  have  been  fruitless  ;  even  with  him  it 
was  often  nearly  so. 


126  HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 

talkative.  The  learners  work  for  week's  wages,  she  says. 
How  much  do  they  earn  ?  She  shrugs  her  shoulders  with 
an  expressive  gesture.  The  workers  themselves,  asked  in 
their  own  tongue,  say  indifferently,  as  though  the  question 
were  of  no  interest :  from  two  to  five  dollars.  The  children 
— there  are  four  of  them — are  not  old  enough  to  work.  The 
oldest  is  only  six.  They  turn  out  one  hundred  and  twenty 
dozen  "  knee-pants  "  a  week,  for  which  the  manufacturer 
pays  seventy  cents  a  dozen.  Five  cents  a  dozen  is  the 
clear  profit,  but  her  own  and  her  husband's  work  brings 
the  family  earnings  up  to  twenty-five  dollars  a  week,  when 
they  have  work  all  the  time.  But  often  half  the  time  is 
put  in  looking  for  it.  They  work  no  longer  than  to  nine 
o'clock  at  night,  from  daybreak.  There  are  ten  machines 
in  the  room  ;  six  are  hired  at  two  dollars  a  month.  For 
the  two  shabby,  smoke-begrimed  rooms,  one  somewhat 
larger  than  ordinary,  they  pay  twenty  dollars  a  month. 
She  does  not  complain,  though  "  times  are  not  what  they 
were,  and  it  costs  a  good  deal  to  live."  Eight  dollars  a 
week  for  the  family  of  six  and  two  boarders.  How  do 
they  do  it  ?  She  laughs,  as  she  goes  over  the  bill  of  fare, 
at  the  silly  question :  Bread,  fifteen  cents  a  day,  of  milk 
two  quarts  a  day  at  four  cents  a  quart,  one  pound  of  meat 
for  dinner  at  twelve  cents,  butter  one  pound  a  week  at 
"  eight  cents  a  quarter  of  a  pound."  Coffee,  potatoes,  and 
pickles  complete  the  list.  At  the  least  calculation,  prob- 
ably, this  sweater's  family  hoards  up  thirty  dollars  a  month, 
and  in  a  few  ye'ars  will  own  a  tenement  somewhere  and 
profit  by  the  example  set  by  their  landlord  in  rent-col- 
lecting. It  is  the  way  the  savings  of  Jewtown  are  uni- 
versally invested,  and  with  the  natural  talent  of  its  people 
for  commercial  speculation  the  investment  is  enormously 
profitable. 


128 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


On  the  next  floor,  in  a  dimly  lighted  room  with  a  big 
red-hot  stove  to  keep  the  pressing  irons  ready  for  use,  is 
a  family  of  man,  wife,  three  children,  and  a  boarder. 
"  Knee-pants  "  are  made  there  too,  of  a  still  lower  grade. 
Three  cents  and  a  half  is  all  he  clears,  says  the  man,  and 
lies  probably  out  of  at  least  two  cents.  The  wife  makes  a 
dollar  and  a  half  finishing,  the  man  about  nine  dollars  at 
the  machine.  The  boarder  pays  sixty-five  cents  a  week, 
lie  is  really  only  a  lodger,  getting  his  meals  outside.  The 
rent  is  two  dollars  and  twenty -five  cents  a  week,  cost  of 
living  five  dollars.  Every  floor  has  at  least  two,  some- 
times four,  such  shops.  Here  is  one  with  a  young  family 
for  which  life  is  bright  with  promise.  Husband  and  wife 
work  together;  jnst  now  the  latter,  a  comely  young  wom- 
an, is  eating  her  dinner  of  dry  bread  and  green  pickles. 
Pickles  are  favorite  food  in  Jewtown.  They  are  filling, 
and  keep  the  children  from  crying  with  hunger.  Those 
who  have  stomachs  like  ostriches  thrive  in  spite  of  them 
and  grow  strong — plain  proof  that  they  are  good  to  eat. 
The  rest  ?  "  Well,  they  die,"  says  our  guide,  dryly.  "No 
thought  of  untimely  death  comes  to  disturb  this  family 
with  life  all  before  it.  In  a  few  years  the  man  will 
be  a  prosperous  sweater.  Already  he  employs  an  old 
man  as  ironer  at  three  dollars  a  week,  and  a  sweet- 
faced  little  Italian  girl  as  finisher  at  a  dollar  and  a 
half.  She  is  twelve,  she  says,  and  can  neither  read  nor 
write ;  will  probably  never  learn.  How  should  she  ? 
The  family  clears  from  ten  to  eleven  dollars  a  week 
in  brisk  times,  more  than  half  of  which  goes  into  the 
bank. 

A  companion  picture  from  across  the  hall.  The  man 
works  on  the  machine  for  his  sweater  twelve  hours  a  clay, 
turning  out  three  dozen  "  knee-pants,"  for  which  he  re- 


THE  SWEATERS  OF  JEWTOWN. 


129 


ceives  forty-two  cents  a  dozen.  The  finisher  who  works 
with  him  gets  ten,  and  the  ironer  eight  cents  a  dozen ; 
buttonholes  are  extra,  at  eight  to  ten  cents  a  hundred. 
This  operator  has  four  children  at  his  home  in  Stanton 
Street,  none  old  enough  to  work,  and  a  sick  wife.  His 
rent  is  twelve  dollars  a  month  ;  his  wages  for  a  hard 
week's  work  less  than  eight  dollars.  Such  as  he,  with 
their  consuming  desire  for  money  thus  smothered,  re- 
cruit the  ranks  of  the  anarchists,  won  over  by  the  prom- 
ise of  a  general  "  divide  ; "  and  an  enlightened  public 
sentiment  turns  up  its  nose  at  the  vicious  foreigner  for 
whose  perverted  notions  there  is  no  room  in  this  land  of 
plenty. 

Turning  the  corner  into  Hester  Street,  we  stumble  upon 
a  nest  of  cloak-makers  in  their  busy  season.  Six  months 
of  the  year  the  cloak-maker  is  idle,  or  nearly  so.  Now  is 
his  harvest.  Seventy-five  cents  a  cloak,  all  complete,  is 
the  price  in  this  shop.  The  cloak  is  of  cheap  plush,  and 
might  sell  for  eight  or  nine  dollars  over  the  store-counter. 
Seven  dollars  |b  the  weekly  wage  of  this  man  with  wife 
and  two  children,  and  nine  dollars  and  a  half  rent  to  pay 
per  month.  A  boarder  pays  about  a  third  of  it.  There 
was  a  time  when  he  made  ten  dollars  a  week  and  thought 
himself  rich.  But  wages  have  come  down  fearfully  in 
the  last  two  years.  Think  of  it :  "  come  down  "  to  this. 
The  other  cloak-makers  aver  that  they  can  make  as  much 
as  twelve  dollars  a  week,  when  they  are  employed,  by 
taking  their  work  home  and  sewing  till  midnight.  One 
exhibits  his  account-book  with  a  Ludlow  Street  sweater. 
It  shows  that  he  and  his  partner,  working  on  first-class  gar- 
ments for  a  Broadway  house  in  the  four  busiest  weeks  of 
the  season,  made  together  from  $15.15  to  $19.20  a  week 
by  striving  from  6  a.m.  to  11  p.m.,  that  is  to  say,  from 
9 


130 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


$7.58  to  $9.60  each.*  The  sweater  on  this  work  probably 
made  as  much  as  fifty  per  cent,  at  least  on  their  labor. 
Not  far  away  is  a  factory  in  a  rear  yard  where  the  factory 
inspector  reports  teams  of  tailors  making  men's  coats  at 
an  average  of  twenty-seven  cents  a  coat,  all  complete  ex- 
cept buttons  and  button-holes. 

Turning  back,  we  pass  a  towering  double  tenement  in 
Ludlow  Street,  owned  by  a  well-known  Jewish  liquor 
dealer  and  politician,  a  triple  combination  that  bodes  ill 
for  his  tenants.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  cheapest  "  apart- 
ment," three  rear  rooms  on  the  sixth  floor,  only  one  of 
which  deserves  the  name,  is  rented  for  $13  a  month. 
Here  is  a  reminder  of  the  Bend,  a  hallway  turned  into  a 
shoemaker's  shop.  Two  hallways  side  by  side  in  ad- 
joining tenements,  would  be  sinful  waste  in  Jewtown, 
when  one  would  do  as  well  by  knocking  a  hole  in  the  wall. 
But  this  shoemaker  knows  a  trick  the  Italian's  ingenuity 
did  not  suggest.  He  has  his  "  flat "  as  well  as  his  shop 
there.  A  curtain  hung  back  of  his  stool  in  the  narrow 
passage  half  conceals  his  bed  that  fills  it  entirely  from 
wall  to  wall.  To  get  into  it  he  has  to  crawl  over  the  foot- 
board, and  he  must  come  out  the  same  way.  Expedients 
more  odd  than  this  are  born  of  the  East  Side  crowding. 
In  one  of  the  houses  we  left,  the  coal-bin  of  a  family 
on  the  fourth  floor  was  on  the  roof  of  the  adjoining  tene- 
ment. A  quarter  of  a  ton  of  coal  was  being  dumped 
there  while  we  talked  with  the  people. 

We  have  reached  Broome  Street.  The  hum  of  industry 
in  this  six-story  tenement  on  the  corner  leaves  no  doubt 
of  the  aspect  Sunday  wears  within  it.  One  flight  up,  we 
knock  at  the  nearest  door.    The  grocer,  who  keeps  the 

*  The  strike  of  the  cloakmakers  last  summer,  that  ended  in  victory, 
raised  their  wages  considerably,  at  least  for  the  time  being. 


THE  SWEATEES  OF  JEWTOWN. 


131 


store,  lives  on  the  "  stoop,"  the  first  floor  in  East  Side 
parlance.  In  this  room  a  snspender-maker  sleeps  and 
works  with  his  family  of  wife  and  four  children.  For  a 
wonder  there  are  no  boarders.  His  wife  and  eighteen 
years  old  daughter  share  in  the  work,  but  the  girl's  eyes 
are  giving  out  from  the  strain.  Three  months  in  the 
year,  when  work  is  very  brisk,  the  family  makes  by  united 
efforts  as  high  as  fourteen  and  fifteen  dollars  a  week.  The 
other  nine  months  it  averages  from  three  to  four  dollars. 
The  oldest  boy,  a  young  man,  earns  from  four  to  six 
dollars  in  an  Orchard  Street  factory,  when  he  has  work. 
The  rent  is  ten  dollars  a  month  for  the  room  and  a  miser- 
able little  coop  of  a  bedroom  where  the  old  folks  sleep. 
The  girl  makes  her  bed  on  the  lounge  in  the  front  room  ; 
the  big  boys  and  the  children  sleep  on  the  floor.  Coal  at 
ten  cents  a  small  pail,  meat  at  twelve  cents  a  pound,  one 
and  a  half  pound  of  butter  a  week  at  thirty-six  cents,  and 
a  quarter  of  a  pound  of  tea  in  the  same  space  of  time,  are 
items  of  their  house-keeping  account  as  given  by  the 
daughter.  JMilk  at  four  and  five  cents  a  quart,  "  accord- 
ing to  quality."  The  sanitary  authorities  know  what  that 
means,  know  how  miserably  inadequate  is  the  fine  of  fifty 
or  a  hundred  dollars  for  the  murder  done  in  cold  blood  by 
the  wretches  who  poison  the  babes  of  these- tenements  with 
the  stuff  that  is  half  water,  or  swill.  Their  defence  is 
that  the  demand  is  for  "  cheap  milk."  Scarcely  a  wonder 
that  this  suspender- maker  will  hardly  be  able  to  save  up 
the  dot  for  his  daughter,  without  which  she  stands  no 
chance  of  marrying  in  Jewtown,  even  with  her  face  that 
would  be  pretty  had  it  a  healthier  tinge. 

Up  under  the  roof  three  men  are  making  boys'  jackets 
at  twenty  cents  a  piece,  of  which  the  sewer  takes  eight, 
the  ironer  three,  the  finisher  five  cents,  and  the  button- 


132 


HOW  THE  OTHEE  HALF  LIVES. 


hole-maker  two  and  a  quarter,  leaving  a  cent  and  three- 
quarters  to  pay  for  the  drumming  up,  the  fetching  and 
bringing  back  of  the  goods.  They  bunk  together  in  a 
room  for  which  they  pay  eight  dollars  a  month.  All  three 
are  single  here,  that  is  :  their  wives  are  on  the  other  side 
yet,  waiting  for  them  to  earn  enough  to  send  for  them. 
Their  breakfast,  eaten  at  the  work-bench,  consists  of  a 
couple  of  rolls  at  a  cent  a  piece,  and  a  draught  of  water, 
milk  when  business  has  been  very  good,  a  square  meal  at 
noon  in  a  restaurant,  and  the  morning  meal  over  again  at 
night.  This  square  meal,  that  is  the  evidence  of  a  very 
liberal  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  consumer,  is  an  affair 
of  more  than  ordinary  note ;  it  may  be  justly  called  an 
institution.  I  know  of  a  couple  of  restaurants  at  the 
lower  end  of  Orchard  Street  that  are  favorite  resorts  for 
the  Polish  Jews,  who  remember  the  injunction  that  the 
ox  that  treadeth  out  the  corn  shall  not  be  muzzled. 
Being  neighbors,  they  are  rivals  of  course,  and  cutting 
under.  When  I  was  last  there  one  gave  a  dinner  of  soup, 
meat-stew,  bread,  pie,  pickles,  and  a  "  schooner  "  of  beer 
for  thirteen  cents ;  the  other  charged  fifteen  cents  for  a 
similar  dinner,  but  with  two  schooners  of  beer  and  a  cigar, 
or  a  cigarette,  as  the  extra  inducement.  The  two  cents 
had  won  the  day,  however,  and  the  thirteen-cent  restaurant 
did  such  a  thriving  business  that  it  was  about  to  spread 
out  into  the  adjoining  store  to  accommodate  the  crowds  of 
customers.  At  this  rate  the  lodger  of  Jewtown  can  "  live 
like  a  lord,"  as  he  says  himself,  for  twenty-five  cents  a 
day,  including  the  price  of  his  bed,  that  ranges  all  the 
way  from  thirty  to  forty  and  fifty  cents  a  week,  and  save 
money,  no  matter  what  his  earnings.  He  does  it,  too,  so 
long  as  work  is  to  be  had  at  any  price,  and  by  the  standard 
he  sets  up  Jewtown  must  abide. 


THE  SWEATERS  OE  JEWTOTOT. 


133 


It  has  thousands  upon  thousands  of  lodgers  who  help  to 
pay  its  extortionate  rents.  .  At  night  there  is  scarce  a 
room  in  all  the  district  that  has  not  one  or  more  of  them, 
some  above  half  a  score,  sleeping  on  cots,  or  on  the  floor. 
It  is  idle  to  speak  of  privacy  in  these  "  homes."  The  term 
carries  no  more  meaning  with  it  than  would  a  lecture  on 
social  ethics  to  an  audience  of  Hottentots.  The  picture 
is  not  overdrawn.  In  fact,  in  presenting  the  home  life 
of  these  people  I  have  been  at  some  pains  to  avoid  the 
extreme  of  privation,  taking  the  cases  just  as  they  came 
to  hand  on  the  safer  middle-ground  of  average  earnings. 
Yet  even  the  direst  apparent  poverty  in  Jewtown,  unless 
dependent  on  absolute  lack  of  work,  would,  were  the 
truth  known,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  have  a  silver  lining 
in  the  shape  of  a  margin  in  bank. 

These  are  the  economical  conditions  that  enable  my 
manufacturing  friend  to  boast  that  New  York  can  "  beat 
the  world  "  on  cheap  clothing.  In  support  of  his  claim 
he  told  me  that  a  single  Bowery  firm  last  year  sold  fif- 
teen thousand  suits  at  $1.95  that  averaged  in  cost  $1.12 J. 
With  the  material  at  fifteen  cents  a  yard,  he  said,  chil- 
dren's suits  of  assorted  sizes  can  be  sold  at  wholesale  for 
seventy-five  cents,  and  boys'  cape  overcoats  at  the  same 
price.  They  are  the  same  conditions  that  }iave  perplexed 
the  committee  of  benevolent  Hebrews  in  charge  of  Baron 
de  Hirsch's  munificent  g^ft  of  ten  thousand  dollars  a 
month  for  the  relief  of  the  Jewish  poor  in  New  York. 
To  find  proper  channels  through  which  to  pour  this  money 
so  that  it  shall  effect  its  purpose  without  pauperizing,  and 
without  perpetuating  the  problem  it  is  sought  to  solve,  by 
attracting  still  greater  swarms,  is  indeed  no  easy  task. 
Colonization  has  not  in  the  past  been  a  success  with  these 
people.   The  great  mass  of  them  are  too  gregarious  to  take 


134 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


kindly  to  farming,  and  their  strong  commercial  instinct 
hampers  the  experiment.  To  herd  them  in  model  tene- 
ments, though  it  relieve  the  physical  suffering  in  a  meas- 
ure, would  be  to  treat  a  symptom  of  the  disease  rather 
than  strike  at  its  root,  even  if  land  could  be  got  cheap 
enough  where  they  gather  to  build  on  a  sufficiently  large 
scale  to  make  the  plan  a  success.  Trade  schools  for  man- 
ual training  could  hardly  be  made  to  reach  the  adults,  who 
in  addition  would  have  to  be  supported  for  months  while 
learning.  For  the  young  this  device  has  proved  most  ex- 
cellent under  the  wise  management  of  the  United  Hebrew 
Charities,  an  organization  that  gathers  to  its  work  the 
best  thought  and  effort  of  many  of  our  most  public-spirit- 
ed citizens.  One,  or  all,  of  these  plans  may  be  tried, 
probably  will.  I  state  but  the  misgivings  as  to  the  re- 
sult of  some  of  the  practical  minds  that  have  busied  them- 
selves with  the  problem.  Its  keynote  evidently  is  the 
ignorance  of  the  immigrants.  They  must  be  taught  the 
language  of  the  country  they  have  chosen  as  their  home, 
as  the  first  and  most  necessary  step.  Whatever  may  fol- 
low, that  is  essential,  absolutely  vital.  That  done,  it  may 
well  be  that  the  case  in  its  new  aspect  will  not  be  nearly 
so  hard  to  deal  with. 

Evening  has  worn  into  night  as  we  take  up  our  home- 
ward journey  through  the  streets,  now  no  longer  silent. 
The  thousands  of  lighted  windows  in  the  tenements  glow 
like  dull  red  eyes  in  a  huge  stone  wall.  From  every 
door  multitudes  of  tired  men  and  women  pour  forth  for  a 
half-hour's  retc  in  the  open  air  before  sleep  closes  the  eyes 
weary  with  incessant  working.  Crowds  of  half-naked 
children  tumble  in  the  street  and  on  the  sidewalk,  or  doze 
fretfully  on  the  stone  steps.  As  we  stop  in  front  of  a 
tenement  to  watch  one  of  these  groups,  a  dirty  baby  in  a 


THE  SWEATEES  OF  JEAVTOWX. 


135 


single  brief  garment — yet  a  sweet,  human  little  baby  de- 
spite its  dirt  and  tatters — tumbles  off  the  lowest  step,  rolls 
over  once,  clutches  my  leg  with  unconscious  grip,  and 
goes  to  sleep  on  the  flagstones,  its  curly  head  pillowed  on 
my  boot. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  BOHEMIANS— TENEMENT-HOUSE  CIGARMAKING. 

EYIL  as  the  part  is  which  the  tenement  plays  in  Jew- 
town  as  the  pretext  for  circumventing  the  law  that 
was  made  to  benefit  and  relieve  the  tenant,  we  have  not 
far  to  go  to  find  it  in  even  a  worse  role.  If  the  tenement 
is  here  continually  dragged  into  the  eye  of  public  con- 
demnation and  scorn,  it  is  because  in  one  way  or  another 
it  is  found  directly  responsible  for,  or  intimately  associ- 
ated with,  three-fourths  of  the  miseries  of  the  poor.  In 
the  Bohemian  quarter  it  is  made  the  vehicle  for  enforcing 
upon  a  proud  race  a  slavery  as  real  as  any  that  ever  dis- 
graced the  South.  Not  content  with  simply  robbing  the 
tenant,  the  owner,  in  the  dual  capacity  of  landlord  and 
employer,  reduces  him  to  virtual  serfdom  by  making  his 
becoming  his  tenant,  on  such  terms  as  he  sees  fit  to  make, 
the  condition  of  employment  at  wages  likewise  of  his  own 
making.  It  does  not  help  the  case  that  this  landlord  em- 
ployer, almost  always  a  Jew,  is  frequently  of  the  thrifty 
Polish  race  just  described. 

Perhaps  the  Bohemian  quarter  is  hardly  the  proper 
name  to  give  to  the  colony,  for  though  it  has  distinct 
boundaries  it  \*  scattered  over  a  wide  area  on  the  East  Side, 
in  wedge-like  streaks  that  relieve  the  monotony  of  the 
solid  German  population  by  their  strong  contrasts.  The 
two  races  mingle  no  more  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic 
than  on  the  rugged  slopes  of  the  Bohemian  mountains  ; 


THE  BOHEMIANS. 


137 


the  echoes  of  the  thirty  years'  war  ring  in  Xew  York,  after 
two  centuries  and  a  half,  with  as  fierce  a  hatred  as  the 
gigantic  combat  bred  among  the  vanquished  Czechs.  A 
chief  reason  for  this  is  doubtless  the  complete  isolation  of 
the  Bohemian  immigrant.  Several  causes  operate  to  bring 
this  about :  his  singularly  harsh  and  unattractive  language, 
which  he  can  neither  easily  himself  unlearn  nor  impart 
to  others,  his  stubborn  pride  of  race,  and  a  popular  prej- 
udice which  has  forced  upon  him  the  unjust  stigma  of  a 
disturber  of  the  public  peace  and  an  enemy  of  organized 
labor.  I  greatly  mistrust  that  the  Bohemian  on  our  shores 
is  a  much-abused  man.  To  his  traducer,  who  casts  up  an- 
archism against  him,  he  replies  that  the  last  census  (1880) 
shows  his  people  to  have  the  fewest  criminals  of  all  in  pro- 
portion to  numbers.  In  Xew  York  a  Bohemian  criminal 
is  such  a  rarity  that  the  case  of  two  firebugs  of  several 
years  ago  is  remembered  with  damaging  distinctness. 
The  accusation  that  he  lives  like  the  "  rat "  he  is,  cutting 
down  wages  by  his  underpaid  labor,  he  throws  back  in  the 
teeth  of  the  trades  unions  with  the  counter-charge  that 
they  are  the  first  cause  of  his  attitude  to  the  labor  ques- 
tion. 

A  little  way  above  Houston  Street  the  first  of  his 
colonies  is  encountered,  in  Fifth  Street  and  thereabouts. 
Then  for  a  mile  and  a  half  scarce  a  Bohemian  is  to  be 
found,  until  Thirty-eighth  Street  is  reached.  Fifty-fourth 
and  Seventy-third  Streets  in  their  turn  are  the  centres  of 
populous  Bohemian  settlements.  The  location  of  the 
cigar  factories,  upon  which  he  depends  for  a  living,  de- 
termines his  choice  of  home,  though  there  is  less  choice 
about  it  than  with  any  other  class  in  the  community,  save 
perhaps  the  colored  people.  Probably  more  than  half  of 
all  the  Bohemians  in  this  city  are  cigarmakers,  and  it  is 


138 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


the  herding  of  these  in  great  numbers  in  the  so-called 
tenement  factories,  where  the  cheapest  grade  of  work  is 
done  at  the  lowest  wages,  that  constitutes  at  once  their 
greatest  hardship  and  the  chief  grudge  of  other  workmen 
against  them.  The  manufacturer  who  owns,  say,  from 
three  or  four,  to  a  dozen  or  more  tenements  contiguous 
to  his  shop,  fills  them  up  with  these  people,  charging  them 
outrageous  rents,  and  demanding  often  even  a  preliminary 
deposit  of  five  dollars  "  key  money;"  deals  them  out 
tobacco  by  the  week,  and  devotes  the  rest  of  his  ener- 
gies to  the  paring  down  of  wages  to  within  a  peg  or  two  of 
the  point  where  the  tenant  rebels  in  desperation.  When 
he  does  rebel,  he  is  given  the  alternative  of  submission, 
or  eviction  with  entire  loss  of  employment.  His  needs 
determine  the  issue.  Usually  he  is  not  in  a  position  to 
hesitate  long.  Unlike  the  Polish  Jew,  whose  example  of 
untiring  industry  lie  emulates,  he  has  seldom  much  laid 
up  against  a  rainy  day.  He  is  fond  of  a  glass  of  beer,  and 
likes  to  live  as  well  as  his  means  will  permit.  The  shop 
triumphs,  and  fetters  more  galling  than  ever  are  forged 
for  the  tenant.  In  the  opposite  case,  the  newspapers  have 
to  record  the  throwing  upon  the  street  of  a  small  army  of 
people,  with  pitiful  cases  of  destitution  and  family  misery. 

Men,  women  and  children  work  together  seven  days  in 
the  week  in  these  cheerless  tenements  to  make  a  living 
for  the  family,  from  the  break  of  day  till  far  into  the 
night.  Often  the  wife  is  the  original  cigarmaker  from 
the  old  home,  the  husband  having  adopted  her  trade  here 
as  a  matter  of  necessity,  because,  knowing  no  word  of 
English,  he  could  get  no  other  work.  As  they  state  the 
cause  of  the  bitter  hostility  of  the  trades  unions,  she  was 
the  primary  bone  of  contention  in  the  day  of  the  early 
Bohemian  immigration.    The  unions  refused  to  admit  the 


THE  BOHEMIANS. 


139 


women,  and,  as  the  support  of  the  family  depended  upon 
her  to  a  large  extent,  such  terms  as  were  offered  had  to 
be  accepted.  The  manufacturer  has  ever  since  industri- 
ously fanned  the  antagonism  between  the  unions  and  his 
hands,  for  his  own  advantage.  The  victory  rests  with  him, 
since  the  Court  of  Appeals  decided  that  the  law,  passed  a 
few  years  ago,  to  prohibit  cigarmaking  in  tenements  was 
unconstitutional,  and  thus  put  an  end  to  the  struggle. 
While  it  lasted,  all  sorts  of  frightful  stories  were  told  of 
the  shocking  conditions  under  which  people  lived  and 
worked  in  these  tenements,  from  a  sanitary  point  of  view 
especially,  and  a  general  impression  survives  to  this  day 
that  they  are  particularly  desperate.  The  Board  of 
Health,  after  a  careful  canvass,  did  not  find  them  so  then. 
I  am  satisfied  from  personal  inspection,  at  a  much  later 
day,  guided  in  a  number  of  instances  by  the  union  cigar- 
makers  themselves  to  the  tenements  which  they  consid- 
ered the  worst,  that  the  accounts  were  greatly  exagger- 
ated. Doubtless  the  people  are  poor,  in  many  cases  very 
poor ;  but  they  are  not  uncleanly,  rather  the  reverse ; 
they  live  much  better  than  the  clothing-makers  in  the 
Tenth  Ward,  and  in  spite  of  their  sallow  look,  that  may 
be  due  to  the  all-pervading  smell  of  tobacco,  they  do  not 
appear  to  be  less  healthy  than  other  in-door  workers.  I 
found  on  my  tours  of  investigation  several  cases  of  con- 
sumption, of  which  one  at  least  was  said  by  the  doctor  to 
be  due  to  the  constant  inhalation  of  tobacco  fumes.  But  an 
examination  of  the  death  records  in  the  Health  Depart- 
ment does  not  support  the  claim  that  the  Bohemian  cigar- 
makers  are  peculiarly  prone  to  that  disease.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  Bohemian  percentage  of  deaths  from  consump- 
tion appears  quite  low.  This,  however,  is  a  line  of  scien- 
tific inquiry  which  I  leave  others  to  pursue,  along  with 


140 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


the  more  involved  problem  whether  the  falling  off  in  the 
number  of  children,  sometimes  quite  noticeable  in  the 
Bohemian  settlements,  is,  as  has  been  suggested,  depend- 
ent upon  the  character  of  the  parents'  work.  The  sore 
grievances  1  found  were  the  miserable  wages  and  the 
enormous  rents  exacted  for  the  minimum  of  accommoda- 
tion.   And  surely  these  stand  for  enough  of  suffering. 

Take  a  row  of  houses  in  East  Tenth  Street  as  an 
instance.  They  contained  thirty-five  families  of  cigar- 
makers,  with  probably  not  half  a  dozen  persons  in  the 
whole  lot  of  them,  outside  of  the  children,  who  could 
speak  a  word  of  English,  though  many  had  been  in  the 
country  half  a  lifetime.  This  room  with  two  windows 
giving  on  the  street,  and  a  rear  attachment  without 
windows,  called  a  bedroom  by  courtesy,  is  rented  at 
$12.25  a  month.  In  the  front  room  man  and  wife  work 
at  the  bench  from  six  in  the  morning  till  nine  at  i>ight. 
They  make  a  team,  stripping  the  tobacco  leaves  together ; 
then  he  makes  the  filler,  and  she  rolls  the  wrapper  on  and 
finishes  the  cigar.  For  a  thousand  they  receive  $3.75, 
and  can  turn  out  together  three  thousand  cigars  a  week. 
The  point  has  been  reached  where  the  rebellion  comes  in, 
and  the  workers  in  these  tenements  are  just  now  on  a 
strike,  demanding  $5.00  and  $5.50  for  their  work.  The 
manufacturer  having  refused,  they  are  expecting  hourly  to 
be  served  with  notice  to  quit  their  homes,  and  the  going 
of  a  stranger  among  them  excites  their  resentment,  until 
his  errand  is  explained.  While  we  are  in  the  house,  the 
ultimatum  of  -  he  "  boss  "  is  received.  He  will  give  $3.75 
a  thousand,  not  another  cent.  Our  host  is  a  man  of  seem- 
ing intelligence,  yet  he  has  been  nine  years  in  New  York 
and  knows  neither  English  nor  German.  Three  bright 
little  children  play  about  the  floor. 


THE  BOHEMIANS. 


141 


His  neighbor  on  the  same  floor  has  been  here  fifteen 
years,  but  shakes  his  head  when  asked  if  he  can  speak 
English.  He  answers  in  a  few  broken  syllables  when  ad- 
dressed in  German.  With  §11.75  rent  to  pay  for  like  ac- 
commodation, he  has  the  advantage  of  his  oldest  boy's  work 
besides  his  wife's  at  the  bench.  Three  properly  make  a 
team,  and  these  three  can  turn  out  four  thousand  cigars  a 
week,  at  $3.75.  This  Bohemian  has  a  large  family  ;  there 
are  four  children,  too  small  to  work,  to  be  cared  for.  A 
comparison  of  the  domestic  bill  of  fare  between  Tenth  and 
Ludlow  Streets  result,  in  the  discovery  that  this  Bohem- 
ian's butcher's  bill  for  the  week,  with  meat  at  twelve  cents 
a  pound  as  in  Ludlow  Street,  is  from  two  dollars  and  a 
half  to  three  dollars.  The  Polish  Jew  fed  as  big  a  family 
on  one  pound  of  meat  a  day.  The  difference  proves  to 
be  typical.  Here  is  a  suit  of  three  rooms,  two  dark,  three 
flights  up.  The  ceiling  is  partly  down  in  one  of  the  rooms. 
"  It  is  three  months  since  we  asked  the  landlord  to  fix  it," 
says  the  oldest  son,  a  very  intelligent  lad  who  has  learned 
English  in  tm  evening  school.  His  father  has  not  had 
that  advantage,  and  has  sat  at  his  bench,  deaf  and  dumb  to 
the  world  about  him  except  his  own,  for  six  years.  He 
has  improved  his  time  and  become  an  expert  at  his  trade. 
Father,  mother,  and  son  together,  a  full  team,  make  from 
fifteen  to  sixteen  dollars  a  week. 

A  man  with  venerable  beard  and  keen  eyes  answers  our 
questions  through  an  interpreter,  in  the  next  house.  Yery 
few  brighter  faces  would  be  met  in  a  day's  walk  among 
American  mechanics,  yet  lie  has  in  nine  years  learned  no 
syllable  of  English.  German  he  probably  does  not  want 
to  learn.  His  story  supplies  the  explanation,  as  did  the 
stories  of  the  others.  In  all  that  time  he  has  been  at 
work  grubbing  to  earn  bread.    Wife  and  he  by  constant 


142 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALE  LIYE8. 


labor  make  three  thousand  cigars  a  week,  earning  SH-25 
when  there  is  no  lack  of  material ;  when  in  winter  they 
receive  from  the  manufacturer  tobacco  for  only  two  thou- 
sand, the  rent  of  S10  for  two  rooms,  practically  one  with  a 
dark  alcove,  has  nevertheless  to  be  paid  in  full,  and  six 
mouths  to  be  fed.  He  was  a  blacksmith  in  the  old  coun- 
try, but  cannot  work  at  his  trade  here  because  he  does  not 
understand  "  Engliska."  If  he  could,  he  says,  with  a  bright 
look,  he  could  do  better  work  than  he  sees  done  here.  It 
would  seem  happiness  to  him  to  knock  off:  at  6  o'clock  in- 
stead of  working,  as  he  now  often  has  to  do,  till  midnight. 
But  how  ?  He  knows  of  no  Bohemian  blacksmith  who 
can  understand  him ;  he  should  starve.  Here,  with  his 
wife,  he  can  make  a  living  at  least.  "  Aye,"  says  she,  turn- 
ing, from  listening,  to  her  household  duties,  "  it  would  be 
nice  for  sure  to  have  father  work  at  his  trade."  Then 
what  a  home  she  could  make  for  them,  and  how  happy 
they  would  be.  Here  is  an  unattainable  ideal,  indeed, 
of  a  workman  in  the  most  prosperous  city  in  the  world  ! 
There  is  genuine,  if  unspoken,  pathos  in  the  soft  tap  she 
gives  her  husband's  hand  as  she  goes  about  her  work  with 
a  half -suppressed  little  sigh. 

The  verv  ash-barrels  that  stand  in  front  of  the  big  rows 
of  tenements  in  Seventy-first  and  Seventy-third  Streets 
advertise  the  business  that  is  carried  on  within.  They  are 
filled  to  the  brim  with  the  stems  of  stripped  tobacco  leaves. 
The  rank  smell  that  waited  for  us  on  the  corner  of  the 
block  follows  us  into  the  hallways,  penetrates  every  nook 
and  cranny  f  the  houses.  As  in  the  settlement  farther 
down  town,  every  room  here  has  its  work-bench  with  its 
stumpy  knife  and  queer  pouch  of  bed-tick,  worn  brown 
and  greasy,  fastened  in  front  the  whole  length  of  the 
bench  to  receive  the  scraps  of  waste.    This  landlord-em- 


144 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


ployer  at  all  events  gives  three  rooms  for  $12.50,  if  two 
be  dark,  one  wholly  and  the  other  getting  some  light 
from  the  front  room.  The  mother  of  the  three  bare-footed 
little  children  we  met  on  the  stairs  was  taken  to  the  hos- 
pital the  other  day  when  she  could  no  longer  work.  She 
will  never  come  out  alive.  There  is  no  waste  in  these  ten- 
ements. Lives,  like  clothes,  are  worn  through  and  out  be- 
fore put  aside.  Her  place  at  the  bench  is  taken  already 
by  another  who  divides  with  the  head  of  the  household 
his  earnings  of  $15.50  a  week.  He  has  just  come  out  suc- 
cessful of  a  strike  that  brought  the  pay  of  these  tene- 
ments up  to  $4.50  per  thousand  cigars.  Kotice  to  quit 
had  already  been  served  on  them,  when  the  employer 
decided  to  give  in,  frightened  by  the  prospective  loss  of 
rent.  Asked  how  long  he  works,  the  man  says :  "  from 
they  can  see  till  bed-time."  Bed-time  proves  to  be  eleven 
o'clock.  Seventeen  hours  a  day,  seven  days  in  the  week, 
at  thirteen  cents  an  hour  for  the  two,  six  cents  and  a  half 
for  each !  Good  average  earnings  for  a  tenement-house 
cigarmaker  in  summer.  In  winter  it  is  at  least  one- 
fourth  less.  In  spite  of  it  all,  the  rooms  are  cleanly  kept. 
From  the  bedroom  farthest  back  the  woman  brings  out 
a  pile  of  moist  tobacco-lea  ves  to  be  stripped.  They  are 
kept  there,  under  cover  lest  they  dry  and  crack,  from  Fri- 
day to  Friday,  when  an  accounting  is  made  and  fresh 
supplies  given  out.  The  people  sleep  there  too,  but  the 
smell,  offensive  to  the  unfamiliar  nose,  does  not  bother 
them.    They  are  used  to  it. 

In  a  house  around  the  corner  that  is  not  a  factory-tene- 
ment, lives  now  the  cigarmaker  I  spoke  of  as  suffering 
from  consumption  which  the  doctor  said  was  due  to  the 
tobacco-fumes.  Perhaps  the  lack  of  healthy  exercise  had 
as  much  to  do  with  it.    His  case  is  interesting  from  its 


THE  BOHEMIANS. 


145 


own  stand-point.  He  too  is  one  with  a — for  a  Bohemian 
— large  family.  Six  children  sit  at  his  table.  By  trade 
a  shoemaker,  for  thirteen  years  he  helped  his  wife  make 
cigars  in  the  manufacturers  tenement.  She  was  a  very 
good  hand,  and  until  his  health  gave  out  two  years  ago  they 
were  able  to  make  from  §17  to  $25  a  week,  by  lengthen- 
ing the  day  at  both  ends.  Now  that  he  can  work  no 
more,  and  the  family  under  the  doctor's  orders  has  moved 
away  from  the  smell  of  tobacco,  the  burden  of  its  support 
has  fallen  upon  her  alone,  for  none  of  the  children  are  old 
enough  to  help.  She  has  work  in  the  shop  at  eight  dol- 
lars a  week,  and  this  must  go  round ;  it  is  all  there  is. 
Happily,  this  being  a  tenement  for  revenue  only,  unmixed 
with  cigars,  the  rent  is  cheaper :  seven  dollars  for  two 
bright  rooms  on  the  top  floor.  ]STo  housekeeping  is  at- 
tempted. A  woman  in  Seventy-second  Street  supplies 
their  cooking,  which  the  wife  and  mother  fetches  in  a 
basket,  her  husband  being  too  weak.  Breakfast  of  coffee 
and  hard-tack,  or  black  bread,  at  twenty  cents  for  the 
whole  eight;  a  good  many,  the  little  woman  says  with  a 
brave,  patient  smile,  and  there  is  seldom  anything  to 

spare,  bat  ■.    The  invalid  is  listening,  and  the  sentence 

remains  unfinished.  What  of  dinner  ?  One  of  the  chil- 
dren brings  it  from  the  cook.  Oh  !  it  is  a  good  dinner, 
meat,  soup,  greens  and  bread,  all  for  thirty  cents.  It  is 
the  principal  family  meal.  Does  she  come  home  for  din- 
ner? Xo  ;  she  cannot  leave  the  shop,  but  gets  a  bite  at 
her  bench.  The  question  :  A  bite  of  what  ?  seems  as  mer- 
ciless as  the  surgeon's  knife,  and  she  winces  under  it  as 
one  shrinks  from  physical  pain.  Bread,  then.  But  at 
night  they  all  have  supper  together — sausage  and  bread. 
For  ten  cents  they  can  eat  all  they  want.  Can  they  not  ? 
she  says,  stroking  the  hair  of  the  little  boy  at  her  knee  ; 
10 


146 


HOW  THE  OTHEPw  HALF  LIVES. 


his  eyes  glisten  hungrily  at  the  thought,  as  he  nods  stout- 
ly in  support  of  his  mother.  Only,  she  adds,  the  week 
the  rent  is  due,  they  have  to  shorten  rations  to  pay  the 
landlord. 

But  what  of  his  being  an  Anarchist,  this  Bohemian — an 
infidel — I  hear  somebody  say.  Almost  one  might  be  per- 
suaded by  such  facts  as  these — and  they  are  everyday 
facts,  not  fancy — to  retort :  what  more  natural  ?  With 
every  hand  raised  against  him  in  the  old  land  and  the 
new,  in  the  land  of  his  hoped-for  freedom,  what  more 
logical  than  that  his  should  be  turned  against  society  that 
seems  to  exist  only  for  his  oppression  ?  But  the  charge 
is  not  half  true.  Naturally  the  Bohemian  loves  peace,  as 
he  loves  music  and  song.  As  someone  has  said :  He 
does  not  seek  war,  but  when  attacked  knows  better  how  to 
die  than  how  to  surrender.  The  Czech  is  the  Irishman 
of  Central  Europe,  with  all  his  genius  and  his  strong  pas- 
sions, with  the  same  bitter  traditions  of  landlord-robbery, 
perpetuated  here  where  he  thought  to  forget  them  ;  like 
him  ever  and  on  principle  in  the  opposition,  "  agin  the 
government"  wherever  he  goes.  Among  such  a  people, 
ground  by  poverty  until  their  songs  have  died  in  curses 
upon  their  oppressors,  hopelessly  isolated  and  ignorant  of 
our  language  and  our  laws,  it  would  not  be  hard  for  bad 
men  at  any  time  to  lead  a  few  astray.  And  this  is  what 
has  been  done.  Yet,  even  with  the  occasional  noise  made 
by  the  few,  the  criminal  statistics  already  alluded  to  quite 
dispose  of  the  charge  that  they  incline  to  turbulence  and 
riot.  So  it  *s  with  the  infidel  propaganda,  the  legacy  per- 
haps of  the  fierce  contention  through  hundreds  of  years 
between  Catholics  and  Protestants  on  Bohemia's  soil,  of 
bad  faith  and  savage  persecutions  in  the  name  of  the 
Christians'  God  that  disgrace  its  history.    The  Bohemian 


THE  BOHEMIANS. 


147 


clergyman,  who  spoke  for  his  people  at  the  Christian  Con- 
ference held  in  Chickering  Hall  two  years  ago,  took  even 
stronger  ground.  "  They  are  Eoraan  Catholics  by  birth, 
infidels  by  necessity,  and  Protestants  by  history  and  in- 
clination," he  said.  Yet  he  added  his  testimony  in  the 
same  breath  to  the  fact  that,  though  the  Freethinkers  had 
started  two  schools  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  his 
church  to  counteract  its  influence,  his  flock  had  grown 
in  a  few  years  from  a  mere  handful  at  the  start  to  propor- 
tions far  beyond  his  hopes,  gathering  in  both  Anarchists 
and  Freethinkers,  and  making  good  church  members  of 
them. 

Thus  the  whole  matter  resolves  itself  once  more  into  a 
question  of  education,  all  the  more  urgent  because  these 
people  are  poor,  miserably  poor  almost  to  a  man.  "  There 
is  not,"  said  one  of  them,  who  knew  thoroughly  what  he 
was  speaking  of,  "  there  is  not  one  of  them  all,  who,  if  he 
were  to  sell  all  he  was  worth  to-morrow,  would  have 
money  enough  to  buy  a  house  and  lot  in  the  country." 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


THE  COLOR  LINE  IN  NEW  YORK. 

FT  HIE  color  line  must  be  drawn  through  the  tenements  to 
give  the  picture  its  proper  shading.  The  landlord 
does  the  drawing,  does  it  with  an  absence  of  pretence,  a 
frankness  of  despotism,  that  is  nothing  if  not  brutal. 
The  Czar  of  all  the  Russias  is  not  more  absolute  upon  his 
own  soil  than  the  New  York  landlord  in  his  dealings  with 
colored  tenants.  Where  he  permits  them  to  live,  they 
go  ;  where  he  shuts  the  door,  stay  out.  By  his  grace  they 
exist  at  all  in  certain  localities;  his  ukase  banishes  them 
from  others.  He  accepts  the  responsibility,  when  laid 
at  his  door,  with  unruffled  complacency.  It  is  business, 
he  will  tell  you.  And  it  is.  He  makes  the  prejudice  in 
which  he  traffics  pay  him  well,  and  that,  as  he  thinks  it 
quite  superfluous  to  tell  you,  is  what  he  is  there  for. 

That  his  pencil  does  not  make  quite  as  black  a  mark  as 
it  did,  that  the  hand  that  wields  it  does  not  bear  down  as 
hard  as  only  a  short  half  dozen  years  ago,  is  the  hopeful 
sign  of  an  awakening  public  conscience  under  the  stress  of 
which  the  line  shows  signs  of  wavering.  But  for  this  the 
^  landlord  deserves  no  credit.  It  has  come,  is  coming  about 
despite  him.  The  line  may  not  be  wholly  effaced  while 
the  name  of  the  negro,  alone  among  the  world's  races,  is 
spelled  with  a  small  n.  Natural  selection  will  have  more 
or  less  to  do  beyond  a  doubt  in  every  age  with  dividing 
the  races ;  only  so,  it  may  be,  can  they  work  out  together 


THE  COLOR  LINE  IN  NEW  YORK. 


149 


their  highest  destiny.  But  with  the  despotism  that  de- 
liberately assigns  to  the  defenceless  Black  the  lowest  level 
for  the  purpose  of  robbing  him  there  that  has  nothing  to 
do.  Of  such  slavery,  different  only  in  degree  from  the 
other  kind  that  held  him  as  a  chattel,  to  be  sold  or  bar- 
tered at  the  will  of  his  master,  this  century,  if  signs  fail 
not,  will  see  the  end  in  Xew  York. 

Ever  since  the  war  Xew  York  has  been  receiving  the 
overflow  of  colored  population  from  the  Southern  cities. 
In  the  last  decade  this  migration  has  grown  to  such  pro- 
portions that  it  is  estimated  that  our  Blacks  have  quite 
doubled  in  number  since  the  Tenth  Census.  Whether  the 
exchange  has  been  of  advantage  to  the  negro  may  well  be 
questioned.  Trades  of  which  he  had  practical  control  in 
his  Southern  home  are  not  open  to  him  here.  I  know  that 
it  may  be  answered  that  there  is  no  industrial  proscription  ' 
of  color  ;  that  it  is  a  matter  of  choice.  Perhaps  so.  At 
all  events  he  does  not  choose  then.  How  many  colored 
carpenters  or  masons  has  anyone  seen  at  work  in  Xew 
York  ?  In  the  South  there  are  enough  of  them  and,  if 
the  testimony  of  the  most  intelligent  of  their  people  is 
worth  anything,  plenty  of  them  have  come  here.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  the  colored  man  takes  in  Xew  York,  with- 
out a  struggle,  the  lower  level  of  menial  service  for  which 
his  past  traditions  and  natural  love  of  ease  perhaps  as  yet 
fit  him  best.  Even  the  colored  barber  is  rapidly  getting 
to  be  a  thing  of  the  past.  Along  shore,  at  any  unskilled 
labor,  he  works  unmolested  ;  but  he  does  not  appear  to 
prefer  the  job.  His  sphere  thus  defined,  he  naturally 
takes  his  stand  among  the  poor,  and  in  the  homes  of  the 
poor.  Until  very  recent  times — the  years  since  a  change 
was  wrought  can  be  counted  on  the  fingers  of  one  hand — 
he  was  practically  restricted  in  the  choice  of  a  home  to  a 


150  HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


narrow  section  on  the  West  Side,  that  nevertheless  had  a 
social  top  and  bottom  to  it — the  top  in  the  tenements  on 
the  line  of  Seventh  Avenue  as  far  north  as  Thirty-second 
Street,  where  he  was  allowed  to  occupy  the  houses  of  un- 
savory reputation  which  the  police  had  cleared  and  for 
which  decent  white  tenants  could  not  be  found ;  the  bot- 
tom in  the  vile  rookeries  of  Thompson  Street  and  South 
Fifth  Avenue,  the  old  "  Africa"  that  is  now  fast  becom- 
ing a  modern  Italy.  To-day  there  are  black  colonies  in 
Yorkville  and  Morrisania.  The  encroachment  of  business 
and  the  Italian  below,  and  the  swelling  of  the  population 
above,  have  been  the  chief  agents  in  working  out  his  sec- 
ond emancipation,  a  very  real  one,  for  with  his  cutting 
loose  from  the  old  tenements  there  has  come  a  distinct 
and  gratifying  improvement  in  the  tenant,  that  argues 
louder  than  theories  or  speeches  the  influence  of  vile  sur- 
roundings in  debasing  the  man.  The  colored  citizen 
whom  this  year's  census  man  found  in  his  Ninety-ninth 
Street  "  flat  "  is  a  very  different  individual  from  the  "nig- 
ger" his  predecessor  counted  in  the  black-and-tan  slums 
of  Thompson  and  Sullivan  Streets.  There  is  no  more 
clean  and  orderly  community  in  New  York  than  the  new 
settlement  of  colored  people  that  is  growing  up  on  the 
East  Side  from  Yorkville  to  Harlem. 

Cleanliness  is  the  characteristic  of  the  negro  in  his  new 
surroundings,  as  it  was  his  virtue  in  the  old.  In  this  re- 
spect he  is  immensely  the  superior  of  the  lowest  of  the 
whites,  the  Italians  and  the  Polish  Jews,  below  whom  he 
has  been  clasped  in  the  past  in  the  tenant  scale.  Never- 
theless, he  has  always  had  to  pay  higher  rents  than  even 
these  for  the  poorest  and  most  stinted  rooms.  The  ex- 
ceptions I  have  come  across,  in  which  the  rents,  though 
high,  have  seemed  more  nearly  on  a  level  with  what  was 


THE  COLOR  LINE  IN  NEW  YORK. 


151 


asked  for  the  same  number  and  size  of  rooms  In  the  av- 
erage tenement,  were  in  the  case  of  tumble-down  rookeries 
in  which  no  one  else  would  live,  and  were  always  coupled 
with  the  condition  that  the  landlord  should  "  make  no 
repairs."  It  can  readily  be  seen,  that  his  profits  were 
scarcely  curtailed  by  his  "humanity."  The  reason  ad- 
vanced for  this  systematic  robbery  is  that  white  people 
will  not  live  in  the  same  house  with  colored  tenants,  or 
even  in  a  house  recently  occupied  by  negroes,  and  that 
consequently  its  selling  value  is  injured.  The  prejudice 
undoubtedly  exists,  but  it  is  not  lessened  by  the  house 
agents,  who  have  set  up  the  maxim  "  once  a  colored  house, 
always  a  colored  house." 

There  is  method  in  the  maxim,  as  shown  by  an  inquiry 
made  last  year  by  the  Real  Estate  Record.  It  proved 
agents  to  be  practically  unanimous  in  the  endorsement  of 
the  negro  as  a  clean,  orderly,  and  "  profitable "  tenant. 
Here  is  the  testimony  of  one  of  the  largest  real  estate 
firms  in  the  city  :  "  We  would  rather  have  negro  tenants 
in  our  poorest  class  of  tenements  than  the  lower  grades  of 
foreign  white  people.  We  find  the  former  cleaner  than 
the  latter,  and  they  do  not  destroy  the  property  so  much. 
We  also  get  higher  prices.  We  have  a  tenement  on  Nine- 
teenth Street,  where  we  get  $10  for  two  rooms  which  we 
could  not  get  more  than  §7.50  for  from  white  tenants  pre- 
viously. We  have  a  four-story  tenement  on  our  books  on 
Thirty-third  Street,  between  Sixth  and  Seventh  Avenues, 
with  four  rooms  per  floor — a  parlor,  two  bedrooms,  and 
a  kitchen.  We  get  $20  for  the  first  floor,  $24  for  the 
second,  $23  for  the  third  and  $20  for  the  fourth,  in  all 
$87  or  $1,044  per  annum.  The  size  of  the  building  is 
only  21+55."  Another  firm  declared  that  in  a  specified 
instance  they  had  saved  fifteen  to  twenty  per  cent,  on  the 


152 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


gross  rentals  since  they  changed  their  white  tenants  for 
colored  ones.  Still  another  gave  the  following  case  of  a 
front  and  rear  tenement  that  had  formerly  been  occupied 
by  tenants  of  a  "  low  European  type,"  who  had  been  turned 
out  on  account  of  filthy  habits  and  poor  pay.  The  ne- 
groes proved  cleaner,  better,  and  steadier  tenants.  In- 
stead, however,  of  having  their  rents  reduced  in  conse- 
quence, the  comparison  stood  as  follows : 


Jtents  under  White  Tenants. 

Per  month. 


Front —        1st  floor  (store,  etc.)   $21 

2d  "    13 

3d  "    13 

4th  "     (and  rear)   21 

Rear—         2d  "    12 

3d  "    12 

4th  "     (see  front)   — 

Rear  house — 1st  '-    8 

2d  "    10 

3d  "  9 

4th  "    8 

Total  $127 


Rents  under  Colored  Tenants. 

Per  month. 


Front—        1st  floor  (store,  etc.)   $21 

2d    14 

3d  "    14 

4th  "    14 

Rear—          2d  "    12 

3d  4i    IS 

4th  "   13 

Rear  house — 1st  "   10 

2d  "    12 

3d  *'    11 

4th  "    10 

Total  ....$144 


An  increased  rental  of  $17  per  month,  or  $204  a  year, 
and  an  advance  of  nearly  thirteen  and  one-half  per  cent, 
on  the  gross  rental  "  in  favor "  of  the  colored  tenant. 
Profitable,  surely  ! 

I  have  quoted  these  cases  at  length  in  order  to  let  in  light 
on  the  quality  of  this  landlord  despotism  that  has  pur- 
posely confused  the  public  mind,  and  for  its  own  selfish  ends 
is  propping  up  a  waning  prejudice.  It  will  be  cause  for 
congratulation  if  indeed  its  time  has  come  at  last.  Within 
a  year,  I  am  told  by  one  of  the  most  intelligent  and  best 
informed  of  our  colored  citizens,  there  has  been  evidence, 
simultaneous  with  the  colored  hegira  from  the  low  down- 
town tenements,  of  a  movement  toward  less  exorbitant 
rents.  I  cannot  pass  from  this  subject  without  adding  a 
leaf  from  my  own  experience  that  deserves  a  place  in  this 


THE  COLOR  LIXE  IN  NEW  YORK. 


153 


record,  though,  for  the  credit  of  humanity,  I  hope  as  an 
extreme  case.  It  was  last  Christmas  that  I  had  occasion  to 
visit  the  home  of  an  old  colored  woman  in  Sixteenth 
Street,  as  the  almoner  of  generous  friends  out  of  town 
who  wished  me  to  buy  her  a  Christmas  dinner.  The  old 
woman  lived  in  a  wretched  shanty,  occupying  two  mean, 
dilapidated  rooms  at  the  top  of  a  sort  of  hen-ladder  that 
went  by  the  name  of  stairs.  For  these  she  paid  ten  dol- 
lars a  month  out  of  her  hard-earned  wages  as  a  scrub- 
woman. I  did  not  find  her  in  and,  being  informed  that 
she  was  "  at  the  agent's,"  went  around  to  hunt  her  up. 
The  agent's  wife  appeared,  to  report  that  Ann  was  out. 
Being  in  a  hurry  it  occurred  to  me  that  I  might  save  time 
by  making  her  employer  the  purveyor  of  my  friend's 
bounty,  and  proposed  to  entrust  the  money,  two  dollars, 
to  her  to  be  expended  for  Old  Ann's  benefit.  She  fell  in 
with  the  suggestion  at  once,  and  confided  to  me  in  the  full- 
ness of  her  heart  that  she  liked  the  plan,  inasmuch  as  "  I 
generally  find  her  a  Christmas  dinner  myself,  and  this 

money — she  owes  Mr.  (her  husband,  the  agent)  a  lot 

of  rent."  xS  eedless  to  state  that  there  was  a  change  of 
programme  then  and  there,  and  that  Ann  was  saved  from 
the  sort  of  Christmas  cheer  that  woman's  charity  would 
have  spread  before  her.  When  I  had  the  old  soul  com- 
fortably installed  in  her  own  den,  with  a  chicken  and 
"  fixin's  "  and  a  bright  fire  in  her  stove,  I  asked  her  how 
much  she  owed  of  her  rent.  Her  answer  was  that  she 
did  not  really  owe  anything,  her  month  not  being  quite 
up,  but  that  the  amount  yet  unpaid  was — two  dollars  ! 

Poverty,  abuse,  and  injustice  alike  the  negro  accepts 
with  imperturbable  cheerfulness.  His  philosophy  is  of 
the  kind  that  has  no  room  for  repining.  Whether  he 
lives  in  an  Eighth  Ward  barrack  or  in  a  tenement  with  a 


154 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


brown-stone  front  and  pretensions  to  the  title  of  "flat,'* 
he  looks  at  the  sunny  side  of  life  and  enjoys  it.  He  loves 
fine  clothes  and  good  living  a  good  deal  more  than  he 
does  a  bank  account.  The  proverbial  rainy  day  it  would 
be  rank  ingratitude,  from  his  point  of  view,  to  look  for 
when  the  sun  shines  unclouded  in  a  clear  sky.  His  home 
surroundings,  except  when  he  is  utterly  depraved,  reflect 
his  blithesome  temper.  The  poorest  negro  housekeeper's 
room  in  New  York  is  bright  with  gaily-colored  prints  of 
his  beloved  "Abe  Linkum,"  General  Grant,  President 
Garfield,  Mrs.  Cleveland,  and  other  national  celebrities, 
and  cheery  with  flowers  and  singing  birds.  In  the  art  of 
putting  the  best  foot  foremost,  of  disguising  his  poverty 
by  making  a  little  go  a  long  way,  our  negro  has  no  equal. 
When  a  fair  share  of  prosperity  is  his,  he  knows  how  to 
make  life  and  home  very  pleasant  to  those  about  him. 
Pianos  and  parlor  furniture  abound  in  the  uptown  homes 
of  colored  tenants  and  give  them  a  very  prosperous  air. 
But  even  where  the  wolf  howls  at  the  door,  he  makes  a 
bold  and  gorgeous  front.  The  amount  of  "style"  dis- 
played on  fine  Sundays  on  Sixth  and  Seventh  Avenues  by 
colored  holiday-makers  would  turn  a  pessimist  black  with 
wrath.  The  negro's  great  ambition  is  to  rise  in  the  social 
scale  to  which  his  color  has  made  him  a  stranger  and  an 
outsider,  and  he  is  quite  willing  to  accept  the  shadow  for 
the  substance  where  that  is  the  best  he  can  get.  The 
claw-hammer  coat  and  white  tie  of  a  waiter  in  a  first-class 
summer  hotel,  with  the  chance  of  taking  his  ease  in  six 
months  of  winter,  are  to  him  the  next  best  thing  to  min- 
gling with  the  white  quality  he  serves,  on  equal  terms. 
His  festive  gatherings,  pre-eminently  his  cake-walks,  at 
which  a  sugared  and  frosted  cake  is  the  proud  prize  of  the 
couple  with  the  most  aristocratic  step  and  carriage,  are  com- 


THE  COLOK  LINE  IN  NEW  YORK. 


155 


ic  mixtures  of  elaborate  ceremonial  and  the  joyous  aban- 
don of  the  natural  man.  With  all  his  ludicrous  incongrui- 
ties, his  sensuality  and  his  lack  of  moral  accountability,  his 
superstition  and  other  faults  that  are  the  effect  of  tempera- 
ment and  of  centuries  of  slavery,  he  has  his  eminently 
good  points.  He  is  loyal  to  the  backbone,  proud  of  being 
an  American  and  of  his  new-found  citizenship.  He  is  at 
least  as  easily  moulded  for  good  as  for  evil.  His  churches 
are  crowded  to  the  doors  on  Sunday  nights  when  the  col- 
ored colony  turns  out  to  worship.  His  people  own  church 
property  in  this  city  upon  which  they  have  paid  half  a 
million  dollars  out  of  the  depth  of  their  poverty,  with 
comparatively  little  assistance  from  their  white  brethren. 
He  is  both  willing  and  anxious  to  learn,  and  his  intellect- 
ual status  is  distinctly  improving.  If  his  emotions  are 
not  very  deeply  rooted,  they  are  at  least  sincere  while 
they  last,  and  until  the  tempter  gets  the  upper  hand  again. 

Of  all  the  temptations  that  beset  him,  the  one  that 
troubles  him  and  the  police  most  is  his  passion  for  gam- 
bling. The  game  of  policy  is  a  kind  of  unlawful  penny 
lottery  specially  adapted  to  his  means,  but  patronized  ex- 
tensively by  poor  white  players  as  well.  It  is  the  mean- 
est of  swindles,  but  reaps  for  its  backers  rich  fortunes 
wherever  colored  people  congregate.  Between  the  for- 
tune-teller and  the  policy  shop,  closely  allied  frauds  al- 
ways, the  wages  of  many  a  hard  day's  work  are  wasted 
by  the  negro  ;  but  the  loss  causes  him  few  regrets.  Pen- 
niless, but  with  undaunted  faith  in  his  ultimate  "  luck," 
he  looks  forward  to  the  time  when  he  shall  once  more  be 
able  to  take  a  hand  at  "  beating  policy."  When  periodi- 
cally the  negro's  lucky  numbers,  4—11-44,  come  out  on 
the  slips  of  the  alleged  daily  drawings,  that  are  supposed 
to  be  held  in  some  far-off  Western  town,  intense  excite- 


156 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


ment  reigns  in  Thompson  Street  and  along  the  Avenue, 
where  someone  is  always  the  winner.  An  immense  im- 
petus is  given  then  to  the  bogus  business  that  has  no  ex- 
istence outside  of  the  cigar  stores  and  candy  shops  where 
it  hides  from  the  law,  save  in  some  cunning  Bowery 
"broker's"  back  office,  where  the  slips  are  printed  and 
the  "  winnings  "  apportioned  daily  with  due  regard  to  the 
backer's  interests. 

It  is  a  question  whether  "  Africa  "  has  been  improved  by 
the  advent  of  the  Italian,  with  the  tramp  from  the  Mul- 
berry Street  Bend  in  his  train.  The  moral  turpitude  of 
Thompson  Street  has  been  notorious  for  years,  and  the 
mingling  of  the  three  elements  does  not  seem  to  have 
wrought  any  change  for  the  better.  The  border-land 
where  the  white  and  black  races  meet  in  common  de- 
bauch, the  aptly-named  black-and-tan  saloon,  has  never 
been  debatable  ground  from  a  moral  stand-point.  It  has 
always  been  the  worst  of  the  desperately  bad.  Than  this 
commingling  of  the  utterly  depraved  of  both  sexes,  white 
and  black,  on  such  ground,  there  can  be  no  greater  abomina- 
tion. Usually  it  is  some  foul  cellar  dive,  perhaps  run  by 
the  political  "leader"  of  the  district,  who  is  "in  with" 
the  police.  In  any  event  it  gathers  to  itself  all  the  law- 
breakers and  all  the  human  wrecks  within  reach.  When 
a  fight  breaks  out  during  the  dance  a  dozen  razors  are 
handy  in  as  many  boot-legs,  and  there  is  always  a  job  for 
the  surgeon  and  the  ambulance.  The  black  "  tough  "  is 
as  handy  with  the  razor  in  a  fight  as  his  peaceably  inclined 
brother  is  with  it  in  pursuit  of  his  honest  trade.  As  the 
Chinaman  hides  his  knife  in  his  sleeve  and  the  Italian  his 
stiletto  in  the  bosom,  so  the  negro  goes  to  the  ball  wTith  a 
razor  in  his  boot-leg,  and  on  occasion  does  as  much  execu- 
tion with  it  as  both  of  the  others  together.    More  than 


158 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


three-fourths  of  the  business  the  police  have  with  the  coL 
ored  people  in  New  York  arises  in  the  black-and-tan  dis- 
trict, now  no  longer  fairly  representative  of  their  color. 

I  have  touched  briefly  upon  such  facts  in  the  negro's  life 
as  may  serve  to  throw  light  on  the  social  condition  of  his 
people  in  New  York.  If,  when  the  account  is  made  up 
between  the  races,  it  shall  be  claimed  that  he  falls  short  of 
the  result  to  be  expected  from  twenty-five  years  of  free- 
dom, it  may  be  well  to  turn  to  the  other  side  of  the  ledger 
and  see  how  much  of  the  blame  is  borne  by  the  prejudice 
and  greed  that  have  kept  him  from  rising  under  a  burden 
of  responsibility  to  which  he  could  hardly  be  equal.  And 
in  this  view  he  may  be  seen  to  have  advanced  much 
farther  and  faster  than  before  suspected,  and  to  promise, 
after  all,  with  fair  treatment,  quite  as  well  as  the  rest  of 
us,  his  white-skinned  fellow-citizens,  had  any  right  to  ex- 
pect. 


CHAPTER  XIY. 


THE    COMMON  HERD. 

THERE  is  another  line  not  always  so  readily  drawn  in 
the  tenements,  yet  the  real  boundary  line  of  the  Other 
Half  :  the  one  that  defines  the  "  flat.'-  The  law  does  not 
draw  it  at  all,  accounting  all  flats  tenements  without  dis- 
tinction. The  health  officer  draws  it  from  observation, 
lumping  all  those  which  in  his  judgment  have  nothing,  or 
not  enough,  to  give  them  claim  upon  the  name,  with  the 
common  herd,  and  his  way  is,  perhaps,  on  the  whole,  the 
surest  and  best.  The  outside  of  the  building  gives  no 
valuable  clew.  Brass  and  brown-stone  go  well  sometimes 
with  dense  crowds  and  dark  and  dingy  rooms ;  but  the 
first  attempt  to  enter  helps  draw  the  line  with  tolerable 
distinctness.  A  locked  door  is  a  strong  point  in  favor  of 
the  flat.  It  argues  that  the  first  step  has  been  taken  to 
secure  privacy,  the  absence  of  which  is  the  chief  curse  of 
the  tenement.  Behind  a  locked  door  the  hoodlum  is  not 
at  home,  unless  there  be  a  jailor  in  place. of  a  janitor  to 
guard  it.  Xot  that  the  janitor  and  the  door-bell  are  in- 
fallible. There  may  be  a  tenement  behind  a  closed  door ; 
but  never  a  "  flat "  without  it.  The  hall  that  is  a  high- 
way for  all  the  world  by  night  and  by  day  is  the  tene- 
ment's proper  badge.  The  Other  Half  ever  receives  with 
open  doors. 

With  this  introduction  we  shall  not  seek  it  long  any- 
where in  the  city.    Below  Houston  Street  the  door-bell  in 


160 


HOW  THE  OTHEE  HALF  LIVES. 


our  age  is  as  extinct  as  the  dodo.  East  of  Second  Avenue, 
and  west  of  £smth  Avenue  as  far  up  as  the  Park,  it  is 
practically  an  unknown  institution.  The  nearer  the  river 
and  the  great  workshops  the  more  numerous  the  tene- 
ments. The  kind  of  work  carried  on  in  any  locality  to  a 
large  extent  determines  their  character.  Skilled  and  well- 
paid  labor  puts  its  stamp  on  a  tenement  even  in  spite  of 


THE  OPEN  DOOR. 


the  open  door,  and  usually  soon  supplies  the  missing  bell. 
Gas-houses,  slaughter-houses  and  the  docks,  that  attract 
the  roughest  crowds  and  support  the  vilest  saloons,  invari- 
ably form  slum-centres.  The  city  is  full  of  such  above 
the  line  of  Fourteenth  Street,  that  is  erroneously  supposed 
by  some  to  fence  off  the  good  from  the  bad,  separate  the 
chaff  from  the  wheat.  There  is  nothing  below  that  line 
that  can  outdo  in  wickedness  Hell's  Kitchen,  in  the  region 


THE  COMMON  HERD. 


161 


of  three-cent  whiskey,  or  its  counterpoise  at  the  other  end 
of  Thirty-ninth  Street,  on  the  East  .River,  the  home  of  the 
infamous  Rag  Gang.  Cherry  Street  is  not  "tougher" 
than  Battle  How  in  East  Sixty-third  Street,  or  "  the  vil- 
lage "  at  Twenty-ninth  Street  and  First  Avenue,  where 
stores  of  broken  bricks,  ammunition  for  the  nightly  con- 
flicts with  the  police,  are  part  of  the  regulation  outfit  of 
every  tenement.  The  Mulberry  Street  Bend  is  scarce 
dirtier  than  Little  Italy  in  Harlem.  Even  across  the  Har- 
lem River,  Frog  Hollow  challenges  the  admiration  of  the 
earlier  slums  for  the  boldness  and  pernicious  activity  of 
its  home  gang.  There  are  enough  of  these  sore  spots. 
We  shall  yet  have  occasion  to  look  into  the  social  con- 
ditions of  some  of  them  ;  were  I  to  draw  a  picture  of 
them  here  as  they  are,  the  subject,  I  fear,  would  outgrow 
alike  the  limits  of  this  book  and  the  reader's  patience. 

It  is  true  that  they  tell  only  one  side  of  the  story ;  that 
there  is  another  to  tell.  A  story  of  thousands  of  devoted 
lives,  laboring  earnestly  to  make  the  most  of  their  scant 
opportunities  for  good ;  of  heroic  men  and  women  striv- 
ing patiently  against  fearful  odds  and  by  their  very  cour- 
age coming  off  victors  in  the  battle  with  the  tenement ;  of 
womanhood  pure  and  undefiled.  That  it  should  blossom 
in  such  an  atmosphere  is  one  of  the  unfathomable  myste- 
ries of  life.  And  yet  it  is  not  an  uncommon  thing  to  find 
sweet  and  innocent  girls,  singularly  untouched  by  the  evil 
around  them,  true  wives  and  faithful  mothers,  literally 
"like  jewels  in  a  swine's  snout,"  in  the  worst  of  the  in- 
famous barracks.  It  is  the  experience  of  all  who  have  in- 
telligently observed  this  side  of  life  in  a  great  city,  not  to 
be  explained — unless  on  the  theory  of  my  friend,  the  priest 
in  the  Mulberry  Street  Bend,  that  inherent  purity  revolts 
instinctively  from  the  naked  brutality  of  vice  as  seen  in 
11 


162 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


the  slums — but  to  be  thankfully  accepted  as  the  one  gleam 
of  hope  in  an  otherwise  hopeless  desert. 

But  the  relief  is  not  great.  In  the  dull  content  of  life 
bred  on  the  tenement-house  dead  level  there  is  little  to  re- 
deem it,  or  to  calm  apprehension  for  a  society  that  has 
nothing  better  to  offer  its  toilers ;  while  the  patient  efforts 
of  the  lives  finally  attuned  to  it  to  render  the  situation 
tolerable,  and  the  very  success  of  these  efforts,  serve  only 
to  bring  out  in  stronger  contrast  the  general  gloom  of  the 
picture  by  showing  how  much  farther  they  might  have 
gone  with  half  a  chance.  Go  into  any  of  the  "  respect- 
able "  tenement  neighborhoods — the  fact  that  there  are 
not  more  than  two  saloons  on  the  corner,  nor  over  three 
or  four  in  the  block  will  serve  as  a  fair  guide — where  live 
the  great  body  of  hard-working  Irish  and  German  immi- 
grants and  their  descendants,  who  accept  naturally  the  con- 
ditions of  tenement  life,  because  for  them  there  is  nothing 
else  in  Xew  York  ;  be  with  and  among  its  people  until 
you  understand  their  ways,  their  aims,  and  the  quality  of 
their  ambitions,  and  unless  you  can  content  yourself  wTith 
the  scriptural  promise  that  the  poor  we  shall  have  always 
with  us,  or  with  the  menagerie  view  that,  if  fed,  they  have 
no  cause  of  complaint,  you  shall  come  away  agreeing  with 
me  that,  humanly  speaking,  life  there  does  not  seem 
worth  the  living.  Take  at  random  one  of  these  uptown 
tenement  blocks,  not  of  the  worst  nor  yet  of  the  most 
prosperous  kind,  within  hail  of  what  the  newspapers  would 
call  a  "  fine  residential  section."  These  houses  were  built 
since  the  last  cholera  scare  made  people  willing  to  listen 
to  reason.  The  block  is  not  like  the  one  over  on  the 
East  Side  in  which  I  actually  lost  my  way  once.  There 
were  thirty  or  forty  rear  houses  in  the  heart  of  it,  three 
or  four  on  every  lot,  set  at  all  sorts  of  angles,  with  odd, 


THE  COMMON  HERD.  163 

winding  passages,  or  no  passage  at  all,  only  "  runways  " 
for  the  thieves  and  toughs  of  the  neighborhood.  These 
yards  are  clear.  There  is  air  there,  and  it  is  about  all 
there  is.  The  view  between  brick  walls  outside  is  that  of 
a  stony  street ;  inside,  of  rows  of  unpainted  board  fences, 
a  bewildering  maze  of  clothes-posts  and  lines;  underfoot,  a 
desert  of  brown,  hard-baked  soil  from  which  every  blade 
of  grass,  every  stray  weed,  every  speck  of  green,  has  been 


bird's-eye  VIEW  of  an  east  pipe  tenement  block,    (from  a  drawing  by 

CHARLES  F.  WINGATE,  ESQ.) 


trodden  out,  as  must  inevitably  be  every  gentle  thought 
and  aspiration  above  the  mere  wants  of  the  body  in  those 
whose  moral  natures  such  home  surroundings  are  to  nour- 
ish. In  self-defence,  you  know,  all  life  eventually  accom- 
modates itself  to  its  environment,  and  human  life  is  no 
exception.  Within  the  house  there  is  nothing  to  supply 
the  want  thus  left  unsatisfied.  Tenement-houses  have 
no  [esthetic  resources.  If  any  are  to  be  brought  to  bear 
on  them,  they  must  come  from  the  outside.  There  is  the 
common  hall  with  doors  opening  softly  on  every  landing 


164 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


as  the  strange  step  is  heard  on  the  stairs,  the  air-shaft  that 
seems  always  so  busy  letting  out  foul  stenches  from  below 
that  it  has  no  time  to  earn  its  name  by  bringing  down 
fresh  air,  the  squeaking  pumps  that  hold  no  water,  and 
the  rent  that  is  never  less  than  one  week's  wages  out  of 
the  four,  quite  as  often  half  of  the  family  earnings. 

Why  complete  the  sketch  ?  It  is  drearily  familiar  al- 
ready. Such  as  it  is,  it  is  the  frame  in  which  are  set  days, 
weeks,  months,  and  years  of  unceasing  toil,  just  able  to  fill 
the  mouth  and  clothe  the  back.  Such  as  it  is,  it  is  the 
world,  and  all  of  it,  to  which  these  weary  workers  return 
nightly  to  feed  heart  and  brain  after  wearing  out  the  body 
at  the  bench,  or  in  the  shop.  To  it  come  the  young  with 
their  restless  yearnings,  perhaps  to  pass  on  the  threshold 
one  of  the  daughters  of  sin,  driven  to  the  tenement  by  the 
police  when  they  raided  her  den,  sallying  forth  in  silks 
and  fine  attire  after  her  day  of  idleness.  These  in  their 
coarse  garments — girls  with  the  love  of  youth  for  beauti- 
ful things,  with  this  hard  life  before  them — who  shall  save 
them  from  the  tempter  ?  Down  in  the  street  the  saloon, 
always  bright  and  gay,  gathering  to  itself  all  the  cheer  of 
the  block,  beckons  the  boys.  In  many  such  blocks  the 
census- taker  found  two  thousand  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren, and  over,  who  called  them  home. 

The  picture  is  faithful  enough  to  stand  for  its  class 
wherever  along  both  rivers  the  Irish  brogue  is  heard.  As 
already  said,  the  Celt  falls  most  readily  victim  to  tene- 
ment influences  since  shanty-town  and  its  original  free- 
soilers  have  become  things  of  the  past.  If  he  be  thrifty 
and  shrewd  lis  progress  thenceforward  is  along  the  plane 
of  the  tenement,  on  which  he  soon  assumes  to  manage 
without  improving  things.  The  German  has  an  advan- 
tage over  his  Celtic  neighbor  in  his  strong  love  for  flow- 


THE  COMMON  HEED. 


165 


ers,  which  not  all  the  tenements  on  the  East  Side  have 
power  to  smother.  His  garden  goes  with  him  wherever 
he  goes.  iSot  that  it  represents  any  high  moral  principle 
in  the  man  ;  rather  perhaps  the  capacity  for  it.  He  turns 
his  saloon  into  a  shrubbery  as  soon  as  his  back-yard.  But 
wherever  he  puts  it  in  a  tenement  block  it  does  the  work 
of  a  dozen  police  clubs.  In  proportion  as  it  spreads  the 
neighborhood  takes  on  a  more  orderly  character.  As  the 
green  dies  out  of  the  landscape  and  increases  in  political 
importance,  the  police  find  more  to  do.  Where  it  dis- 
appears altogether  from  sight,  lapsing  into  a  mere  sen- 
timent, police-beats  are  shortened  and  the  force  patrols 
double  at  night.  Neither  the  man  nor  the  sentiment  is 
wholly  responsible  for  this.  It  is  the  tenement  unadorned 
that  is.  The  changing  of  Tompkins  Square  from  a  sand 
lot  into  a  beautiful  park  put  an  end  for  good  and  all  to  the 
Bread  and  Blood  riots  of  which  it  used  to  be  the  scene, 
and  transformed  a  nest  of  dangerous  agitators  into  a 
harmless,  beer-craving  band  of  Anarchists.  They  have 
scarcely  been  heard  of  since.  Opponents  of  the  small 
parks  system  as  a  means  of  relieving  the  congested  popu- 
lation of  tenement  districts,  please  take  note. 

With  the  first  hot  nights  in  June  police  despatches,  that 
record  the  killing  of  men  and  women  by  rolling  off  roofs 
and  window-sills  while  asleep,  announce  that  the  time  of 
greatest  suffering  among  the  poor  is  at  hand.  It  is  in  hot 
weather,  when  life  indoors  is  well-nigh  unbearable  with 
cooking,  sleeping,  and  working,  all  crowded  into  the  small 
rooms  together,  that  the  tenement  expands,  reckless  of  all 
restraint.  Then  a  strange  and  picturesque  life  moves 
upon  the  flat  roofs.  In  the  day  and  early  evening  moth- 
ers air  their  babies  there,  the  boys  fly  their  kites  from 
the  house-tops,  undismayed  by  police  regulations,  and  the 


166 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


young  men  and  girls  court  and  pass  the  growler.  In  the 
stifling  July  nights,  when  the  big  barracks  are  like  fiery 
furnaces,  their  very  walls  giving  out  absorbed  heat,  men 
and  women  lie  in  restless,  sweltering  rows,  panting  for 
air  and  sleep.    Then  every  truck  in  the  street,  every 

crowded  fire-escape,  becomes 
a  bedroom,  infinitely  prefer- 
able to  any  the  house  affords. 
A  cooling  shower  on  such  a 
night  is  hailed  as  a  heaven- 
sent blessing  in  a  hundred 
thousand  homes. 

Life  in  the  tenements  in 
July  and  August  spells  death 
to  an  army  of  little  ones  whom 
the  doctor's  skill  is  powerless 
to  save.  When  the  white 
badge  of  mourning  Gutters 
from  every  second  door,  sleep- 
less mothers  walk  the  streets 
in  the  gray  of  the  early  dawn, 
trying  to  stir  a  cooling  breeze 
to  fan  the  brow  of  the  sick 
baby.  There  is  no  sadder 
sight  than  this  patient  devo- 
tion striving  against  fearfully  hopeless  odds.  Fifty  "  sum- 
mer doctors,"  especially  trained  to  this  work,  are  then 
sent  into  the  tenements  by  the  Board  of  Health,  with 
free  advice  and  medicine  for  the  poor.  Devoted  women 
follow  in  their  track  with  care  and  nursing  for  the  sick. 
Fresh -air  excursions  run  daily  out  of  New  York  on  land 
and  water ;  but  despite  all  efforts  the  grave-diggers  in 
Calvary  work  over-time,  and  little  coffins  are  stacked 


THE  HERD. 


167 


mountains  high  on  the  deck  of  the  Charity  Commission- 
ers' boat  when  it  makes  its  semi-weekly  trips  to  the  city 
cemetery. 

Under  the  most  favorable  circumstances,  an  epidemic, 
which  the  well-to-do  can  afford  to  make  light  of  as  a  thing 
to  be  got  over  or  avoided  by  reasonable  care,  is  excessively 
fatal  among  the  children  of  the  poor,  by  reason  of  the 
practical  impossibility  of  isolating  the  patient  in  a  tene- 
ment. The  measles,  ordinarily  a  harmless  disease,  fur- 
nishes a  familiar  example.  Tread  it  ever  so  lightly  on  the 
avenues,  in  the  tenements  it  kills  right  and  left.  Such 
an  epidemic  ravaged  three  crowded  blocks  in  Elizabeth 
Street  on  the  heels  of  the  grippe  last  winter,  and,  when  it 
had  spent  its  fury,  the  death-maps  in  the  Bureau  of  Vital 
Statistics  looked  as  if  a  black  hand  had  been  laid  across 
those  blocks,  over-shadowing  in  part  the  contiguous  ten- 
ements in  Mott  Street,  and  with  the  thumb  covering  a 
particularly  packed  settlement  of  half  a  dozen  houses  in 
Mulberry  Street.  The  track  of  the  epidemic  through 
these  teeming  barracks  was  as  clearly  defined  as  the  track 
of  a  tornado  through  a  forest  district.  There  were  houses 
in  which  as  many  as  eight  little  children  had  died  in  five 
months.  The  records  showed  that  respiratory  diseases, 
the  common  heritage  of  the  grippe  and  the  measles,  had 
caused  death  in  most  cases,  discovering  the  trouble  to  be, 
next  to  the  inability  to  check  the  contagion  in  those 
crowds,  in  the  poverty  of  the  parents  and  the  wretched 
home  conditions  that  made  proper  care  of  the  sick  impos- 
sible. The  fact  was  emphasized  by  the  occurrence  here 
and  there  of  a  few  isolated  deaths  from  diphtheria  and 
scarlet  fever.  In  the  case  of  these  diseases,  considered 
more  dangerous  to  the  public  health,  the  health  officers 
exercised  summary  powers  of  removal  to  the  hospital 


168 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


where  proper  treatment  could  be  had,  and  the  result  was  a 
low  death-rate. 

These  were  tenements  of  the  tall,  modern  tjpe.  A  lit- 
tle more  than  a  year  ago,  when  a  census  was  made  of  the 
tenements  and  compared  with  the  mortality  tables,  no 
little  surprise  and  congratulation  was  caused  by  the  dis- 
covery that  as  the  buildings  grew  taller  the  death-rate  fell. 
The  reason  is  plain,  though  the  reverse  had  been  expected 
by  most  people.  The  biggest  tenements  have  been  built 
in  the  last  ten  years  of  sanitary  reform  rule,  and  have  been 
brought,  in  all  but  the  crowding,  under  its  laws.  The  old 
houses  that  from  private  dwellings  were  made  into  tene- 
ments, or  were  run  up  to  house  the  biggest  crowds  in  de- 
fiance of  every  moral  and  physical  law,  can  be  improved 
by  no  device  short  of  demolition.  They  will  ever  remain 
the  worst. 

That  ignorance  plays  its  part,  as  well  as  poverty  and 
bad  hygienic  surroundings,  in  the  sacrifice  of  life  is  of 
course  inevitable.  They  go  usually  hand  in  hand.  A 
message  came  one  day  last  spring  summoning  me  to  a 
Mott  Street  tenement  in  which  lay  a  child  dying  from 
some  unknown  disease.  With  the  "  charity  doctor "  I 
found  the  pa  dent  on  the  top  floor,  stretched  upon  two 
chairs  in  a  dreadfully  stifling  room.  She  was  gasping  in 
the  agony  of  peritonitis  that  had  already  written  its  death- 
sentence  on  her  wan  and  pinched  face.  The  whole  fam- 
ily, father,  mother,  and  four  ragged  children,  sat  around 
looking  on  with  the  stony  resignation  of  helpless  despair 
that  had  long  since  given  up  the  fight  against  fate  as  use- 
less. A  glance  around  the  wretched  room  left  no  doubt 
as  to  the  cause  of  the  child's  condition.  "  Improper  nour- 
ishment," said  the  doctor,  which,  translated  to  suit  the 
place,  meant  starvation.    The  father's  hands  were  crip- 


THE  COMMON  HERD. 


169 


pled  from  lead  poisoning.  He  had  not  been  able  to  work 
for  a  year.  A  contagious  disease  of  the  eyes,  too  long  neg- 
lected, had  made  the  mother  and  one  of  the  boys  nearly 


IK  POVERTY  GAP,  WEST  TWENTY-EIGHTH  ST.     AN  ENGLISH  COAL-HE  AVER'S  HOME.* 


blind.  The  children  cried  with  hunger.  They  had  not 
broken  their  fast  that  day,  and  it  was  then  near  noon. 

*  Suspicions  of  murder,  in  the  case  of  a  woman  who  was  found  dead, 
covered  with  bruises,  after  a  day's  running  fight  with  her  husband,  in 
which  the  beer-jug  had  been  tbe  bone  of  contention,  brought  me  to 
this  house,  a  ramshackle  tenement  on  tbe  tail-end  of  a  lot  over  near 
the  North  River  docks.  Tbe  family  in  the  picture  lived  above  the 
rooms  where  the  dead  woman  lay  on  a  bed  of  straw,  overrun  by  rats, 
and  had  been  uninterested  witnesses  of  the  affray  that  was  an  every- 
day occurrence  in  the  house.    A  patched  and  sbaky  stairway  led  up  to 


170 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


For  months  the  family  had  subsisted  on  two  dollars  a 
week  from  the  priest,  and  a  few  loaves  and  a  piece  of 
corned  beef  which  the  sisters  sent  them  on  Saturday.  The 
doctor  gave  direction  for  the  treatment  of  the  child,  know- 
ing that  it  was  possible  only  to  alleviate  its  sufferings  un- 
til death  should  end  them,  and  left  some  money  for  food 
for  the  rest.  An  hour  later,  when  I  returned,  I  found 
them  feeding  the  dying  child  with  ginger  ale,  bought  for 
two  cents  a  bottle  at  the  pedlar's  cart  down  the  street.  A 
pitying  neighbor  had  proposed  it  as  the  one  thing  she 
could  think  of  as  likely  to  make  the  child  forget  its  mis- 
ery. There  was  enough  in  the  bottle  to  go  round  to  the 
rest  of  the  family.  In  fact,  the  wake  had  already  begun  ; 
before  night  it  was  under  way  in  dead  earnest. 

Every  once  in  a  while  a  case  of  downright  starvation 
gets  into  the  newspapers  and  makes  a  sensation.  But 
this  is  the  exception.  Were  the  whole  truth  known,  it 
would  come  home  to  the  community  with  a  shock  that 
would  rouse  it  to  a  more  serious  effort  than  the  spasmodic 
undoing  of  its  purse-strings.  I  am  satisfied  from  my  own 
observation  that  hundreds  of  men,  women,  and  children 

their  one  bare  and  miserable  room,  in  comparison  witli  which  a  white- 
washed prison-cell  seemed  a  real  palace.  A  heap  of  old  rags,  in  which 
the  baby  slept  serenely,  served  as  the  common  sleeping-bunk  of  fath- 
er, mother,  and  children — two  bright  and  pretty  girls,  singularly  out  of 
keeping  in  their  clean,  if  coarse,  dresses,  with  their  surroundings.  The 
father,  a  slow-going,  honest  English  coal-heaver,  earned  on  the  aver- 
age five  dollars  a  week,  il  when  work  was  fairly  brisk,"  at  the  docks. 
But  there  were  long  seasons  when  it  was  very  "slack,"  he  said,  doubt- 
fully. Yet  the  prospect  did  not  seem  to  discourage  them.  The  mother, 
a  pleasant-faced  woman,  was  cheerful,  even  light-hearted.  Her  smile 
seemed  the  most  sadly  hopeless  of  all  in  the  utter  wretchedness  of  the 
place,  cheery  though  it  was  meant  to  be  and  really  was.  It  seemed 
doomed  to  certain  disappointment — the  one  thing  there  that  was  yet 
to  know  a  greater  depth  of  misery. 


THE  COMMON  HERD. 


171 


are  every  day  slowly  starving  to  death  in  the  tenements 
with  my  medical  friend's  complaint  of  "  improper  nourish- 
ment." Within  a  single  week  I  have  had  this  year  three 
cases  of  insanity,  provoked  directly  by  poverty  and  want. 
One  was  that  of  a  mother  who  in  the  middle  of  the  night 
got  up  to  murder  her  child,  who  was  crying  for  food  ; 
another  was  the  case  of  an  Elizabeth  Street  truck-driver 
whom  the  newspapers  never  heard  of.  With  a  family  to 
provide  for,  he  had  been  unable  to  work  for  many  months. 
There  was  neither  food,  nor  a  scrap  of  anything  upon 
which  money  could  be  raised,  left  in  the  house  ;  his  mind 
gave  way  under  the  combined  physical  and  mental  suf- 
fering. In  the  third  case  I  was  just  in  time  with  the  po- 
lice to  prevent  the  madman  from  murdering  his  whole 
family.  He  had  the  sharpened  hatchet  in  his  pocket  when 
we  seized  him.  He  was  an  Irish  laborer,  and  had  been 
working  in  the  sewers  until  the  poisonous  gases  destroyed 
his  health.  Then  he  was  laid  off,  and  scarcely  anything 
had  been  coming  in  all  winter  but  the  oldest  child's  earn- 
ings as  cash-girl  in  a  store,  $2.50  a  week.  There  were 
seven  children  to  provide  for,  and  the  rent  of  the  Mulberry 
Street  attic  in  which  the  family  lived  was  $10  a  month. 
They  had  borrowed  as  long  as  anybody  had  a  cent  to  lend. 
When  at  last  the  man  got  an  odd  job  that  would  just 
buy  the  children  bread,  the  week's  wages  only  served  to 
measure  the  depth  of  their  misery.  "  It  came  in  so  on  the 
tail-end  of  everything,"  said  his  wife  in  telling  the  story, 
with  unconscious  eloquence.  The  outlook  worried  him 
through  sleepless  nights  until  it  destroyed  his  reason.  In 
his  madness  he  had  only  one  conscious  thought  :  that  the 
town  should  not  take  the  children.  "  Better  that  I  take 
care  of  them  myself,"  he  repeated  to  himself  as  he  ground 
the  axe  to  an  edge.    Help  came  in  abundance  from  many 


172 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


almost  as  poor  as  they  when  the  desperate  straits  of  the 
family  became  known  through  his  arrest.  The  readiness 
of  the  poor  to  share  what  little  they  have  with  those 
who  have  even  less  is  one  of  the  few  moral  virtues  of 
the  tenements.  Their  enormous  crowds  touch  elbow  in 
a  closeness  of  sympathy  that  is  scarcely  to  be  understood 
out  of  them,  and  has  no  parallel  except  among  the  unfor- 
tunate women  whom  the  world  scorns  as  outcasts.  There 
is  very  little  professed  sentiment  about  it  to  draw  a  senti- 
mental tear  from  the  eye  of  romantic  philanthropy.  The 
hard  fact  is  that  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  impels 
them  to  make  common  cause  against  the  common  misery. 

No  doubt  intemperance  bears  a  large  share  of  the  blame 
for  it  ;  judging  from  the  stand-point  of  the  policeman  per- 
haps the  greater  share.  TwO  such  entries  as  I  read  in 
the  police  returns  on  successive  days  last  March,  of  moth- 
ers in  West  Side  tenements,  who,  in  their  drunken  sleep, 
lay  upon  and  killed  their  infants,  go  far  to  support  such  a 
position.  And  they  are  far  from  uncommon.  But  my 
experience  has  shown  me  another  view  of  it,  a  view  which 
the  last  report  of  the  Society  for  Improving  the  Condition 
of  the  Poor  seems  more  than  half  inclined  to  adopt  in 
allotting  to  "  intemperance  the  cause  of  distress,  or  distress 
the  cause  of  intemperance,"  forty  per  cent,  of  the  cases  it 
is  called  upon  to  deal  with.  Even  if  it  were  all  true,  I 
should  still  load  over  upon  the  tenement  the  heaviest  re- 
sponsibility. A  single  factor,  the  scandalous  scarcity  of 
water  in  the  hot  summer  when  the  thirst  of  the  million 
tenants  must  be  quenched,  if  not  in  that  in  something 
else,  has  in  the  past  years  more  than  all  other  causes  en- 
couraged drunkenness  among  the  poor.  But  to  my  mind 
there  is  a  closer  connection  between  the  wages  of  the  tene- 
ments and  the  vices  and  improvidence  of  those  who  dwell 


THE  COMMON  HERD.  173 
i 

in  them  than,  with  the  guilt  of  the  tenement  upon  our 
heads,  we  are  willing  to  admit  even  to  ourselves.  Weak 
tea  with  a  dry  crust  is  not  a  diet  to  nurse  moral  strength. 
Yet  how  much  better  might  the  fare  be  expected  to  be  in 
the  family  of  this  "  widow  with  seven  children,  very  ener- 
getic and  prudent  " — I  quote  again  from  the  report  of  the 
Society  for  the  Improvement  of  the  Condition  of  the  Poor 
— whose  "  eldest  girl  was  employed  as  a  learner  in  a 
tailors  shop  at  small  wages,  and  one  boy  had  a  place  as 
*  cash  '  in  a  store.  There  were  two  other  little  boys  who 
sold  papers  and  sometimes  earned  one  dollar.  The  mother 
finishes  pantaloons  and  can  do  three  pairs  in  a  day,  thus 
earning  thirty-nine  cents.  Here  is  a  family  of  eight  per- 
sons with  rent  to  pay  and  an  income  of  less  than  six  dol- 
lars a  week." 

And  yet  she  was  better  off  in  point  of  pay  than  this 
Sixth  Street  mother,  who  "  had  just  brought  home  four 
pairs  of  pants  to  finish,  at  seven  cents  a  pair.  She  was 
required  to  put  the  canvas  in  the  bottom,  basting  and  sew- 
ing three  times  around  ;  to  put  the  linings  in  the  waist- 
bands ;  to  tack  three  pockets,  three  corners  to  each ;  to 
put  on  two  stays  and  eight  buttons,  and  make  six  button- 
holes ;  to  put  the  buckle  on  the  back  strap  and  sew  on  the 
ticket,  all  for  seven  cents."  Better  off  than  the  "  church- 
going  mother  of  six  children,"  and  with  a  husband  sick  to 
death,  who  to  support  the  family  made  shirts,  averaging 
an  income  of  one  dollar  and  twenty  cents  a  week,  while 
her  oldest  girl,  aged  thirteen,  was  "  employed  down-town 
cutting  out  Hamburg  edgings  at  one  dollar  and  a  half  a 
week — two  and  a  half  cents  per  hour  for  ten  hours  of 
steady  labor — making  the  total  income  of  the  family  two 
dollars  and  seventy  cents  per  week."  Than  the  Harlem 
woman,  who  was  "  making  a  brave  effort  to  support  a 


174  HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 

sick  husband  and  two  children  by  taking  in  washing  at 
thirty-five  cents  for  the  lot  of  fourteen  large  pieces,  find- 
ing coal,  soap,  starch,  and  bluing  herself,  rather  than  de- 
pend on  charity  in  any  form."  Specimen  wages  of  the 
tenements  these,  seemingly  inconsistent  with  the  charge 
of  improvidence. 

But  the  connection  on  second  thought  is  not  obscure. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  prospect  of  a  sharp,  unceasing 
battle  for  the  bare  necessaries  of  life,  to  encourage  looking 
ahead,  everything  to  discourage  the  effort.  Improvidence 
and  wastefulness  are  natural  results.  The  instalment 
plan  secures  to  the  tenant  who  lives  from  hand  to  mouth 
his  few  comforts ;  the  evil  day  of  reckoning  is  put  off  till 
a  to-morrow  that  may  never  come.  When  it  does  come, 
with  failure  to  pay  and  the  loss  of  hard-earned  dollars,  it 
simply  adds  another  hardship  to  a  life  measured  from  the 
cradle  by  such  incidents.  The  children  soon  catch  the 
spirit  of  this  sort  of  thing.  I  remember  once  calling  at 
the  home  of  a  poor  washer- woman,  living  in  an  East  Side 
tenement,  and  finding  the  door  locked.  Some  children  in 
the  hallway  stopped  their  play  and  eyed  me  attentively 
while  I  knocked.  The  biggest  girl  volunteered  the  infor- 
mation that  Mrs.  Smith  was  out ;  but  while  I  was  think- 
ing of  how  I  wTas  to  get  a  message  to  her,  the  child  put  a 
question  of  her  own  :  "  Are  you  the  spring  man  or  the 
clock  man  ? "  When  I  assured  her  that  I  was  neither  one 
nor  the  other,  but  had  brought  work  for  her  mother,  Mrs. 
Smith,  who  had  been  hiding  from  the  instalment  collector, 
speedily  appeared. 

Perhaps  of  all  the  disheartening  experiences  of  those 
who  have  devoted  lives  of  unselfish  thought  and  effort, 
and  their  number  is  not  so  small  as  often  supposed,  to  the 
lifting  of  this  great  load,  the  indifference  of  those  they 


THE  COMMON  HERD. 


175 


would  help  is  the  most  puzzling.  They  will  not  be  helped. 
Dragged  by  main  force  out  of  their  misery,  they  slip  back 
again  on  the  first  opportunity,  seemingly  content  only  in 
the  old  rut.  The  explanation  was  supplied  by  two  women 
of  my  acquaintance  in  an  Elizabeth  Street  tenement, 
whom  the  city  missionaries  had  taken  from  their  wretched 
hovel  and  provided  with  work  and  a  decent  home  some- 
where in  New  Jersey.  In  three  weeks  they  were  back, 
saying  that  they  preferred  their  dark  rear  room  to  the 
stumps  out  in  the  country.  But  to  me  the  oldest,  the 
mother,  who  had  struggled  along  with  her  daughter  mak- 
ing cloaks  at  half  a  dollar  apiece,  twelve  long  years  since 
the  daughters  husband  was  killed  in  a  street  accident  and 
the  city  took  the  children,  made  the  bitter  confession  : 
"  AVe  do  get  so  kind  o'  downhearted  living  this  way,  that 
we  have  to  be  where  something  is  going  on,  or  we  just 
can't  stand  it."  And  there  was  sadder  pathos  to  me  in 
her  words  than  in  the  whole  long  story  of  their  struggle 
with  poverty  ;  for  unconsciously  she  voiced  the  sufferings 
of  thousands,  misjudged  by  a  happier  world,  deemed  vi- 
cious because  they  are  human  and  unfortunate. 

It  is  a  popular  delusion,  encouraged  by  all  sorts  of  exag- 
gerated stories  when  nothing  more  exciting  demands  pub- 
lic attention,  that  there  are  more  evictions  in  the  tene- 
ments of  New  York  every  year  "  than  in  all  Ireland."  I 
am  not  sure  that  it  is  doing  much  for  the  tenant  to  upset 
this  fallacy.  To  my  mind,  to  be  put  out  of  a  tenement 
would  be  the  height  of  good  luck.  The  fact  is,  however, 
that  evictions  are  not  nearly  as  common  in  New  York  as 
supposed.  The  reason  is  that  in  the  civil  courts,  the  judges 
of  which  are  elected  in  their  districts,  the  tenant-voter  has 
solid  ground  to  stand  upon  at  last.  The  law  that  takes  his 
side  to  start  with  is  usually  twisted  to  the  utmost  to  give 


176 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


him  time  and  save  him  expense.  In  the  busiest  East  Side 
court,  that  has  been  very  appropriately  duhbed  the  "  Poor 
Man's  Court,"  fully  five  thousand  dispossess  warrants  are 
issued  in  a  year,  but  probably  not  fifty  evictions  take 
place  in  the  district.  The  landlord  has  only  one  vote, 
while  there  may  be  forty  voters  hiring  his  rooms  in  the 
house,  all  of  which  the  judge  takes  into  careful  account  as 


elements  that  have  a  direct  bearing  on  the  case.  And  so 
they  have — on  his  case.  There  are  sad  cases,  just  as  there 
are  "  rounders  "  who  prefer  to  be  moved  at  the  landlord's 
expense  and  save  the  rent,  but  the  former  at  least  are  un- 
usual enough  to  attract  more  than  their  share  of  attention. 

If  his  very  poverty  compels  the  tenant  to  live  at  a  rate 
if  not  in  a  style  that  would  beggar  a  Vanderbilt,  paving 
four  prices  for  everything  he  needs,  from  his  rent  and 


THE  COMMON  HEED. 


177 


coal  down  to  the  smallest  item  in  his  housekeeping  ac- 
count, fashion,  no  less  inexorable  in  the  tenements  than  on 
the  avenue,  exacts  of  him  that  he  must  die  in  a  style  that 
is  finally  and  utterly  ruinous.  The  habit  of  expensive 
funerals — 1  know  of  no  better  classification  for  it  than 
along  with  the  opium  habit  and  similar  grievous  plagues 
of  mankind — is  a  distinctively  Irish  inheritance,  but  it  has 
taken  root  among  all  classes  of  tenement  dwellers,  curious- 
ly enough  most  firmly  among  the  Italians,  who  have  taken 
amazingly  to  the  funeral  coach,  perhaps  because  it  fur- 
nishes the  one  opportunity  of  their  lives  for  a  really  grand 
turn-out  with  a  free  ride  thrown  in.  It  is  not  at  all  un- 
common to  find  the  hoards  of  a  whole  lifetime  of  hard 
work  and  self  denial  squandered  on  the  empty  show  of  a 
ludicrous  funeral  parade  and  a  display  of  flowers  that  ill 
comports  with  the  humble  life  it  is  supposed  to  exalt.  It 
is  easier  to  understand  the  wake  as  a  sort  of  consolation 
cup  for  the  survivors  for  whom  there  is — as  one  of  them, 
doubtless  a  heathenish  pessimist,  put  it  to  me  once — '*  no 
such  luck."  The  press  and  the  pulpit  have  denounced 
the  wasteful  practice  that  often  entails  bitter  want  upon 
the  relatives  of  the  one  buried  with  such  pomp,  but 
with  little  or  no  apparent  result.  Rather,  the  undertaker's 
business  prospers  more  than  ever  in  the  tenements  since 
the  genius  of  politics  has  seen  its  way  clear  to  make  capi- 
tal out  of  the  dead  voter  as  well  as  of  the  living,  by 
making  him  the  means  of  a  useful  "show  of  strength" 
and  count  of  noses. 

One  free  excursion  awaits  young  and  old  whom  bitter 
poverty  has  denied  the  poor  privilege  of  the  choice  of  the 
home  in  death  they  were  denied  in  life,  the  ride  up  the 
Sound  to  the  Potter's  Field,  charitably  styled  the  City 
Cemetery.  But  even  there  they  do  not  escape  their  fate. 
12 


178 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


In  the  common  trench  of  the  Poor  Burying  Ground  they 
lie  packed  three  stories  deep,  shoulder  to  shoulder,  crowd- 
ed in  death  as  they  were  in  life,  to  "  save  space  ;  "  for 
even  on  that  desert  island  the  ground  is  not  for  the  exclu- 
sive possession  of  those  who  cannot  afford  to  pay  for  it. 
There  is  an  odd  coincidence  in  this,  that  year  by  year  the 
lives  that  are  begun  in  the  gutter,  the  little  nameless  waifs 
whom  the  police  pick  up  and  the  city  adopts  as  its  wards, 
are  balanced  by  the  even  more  forlorn  lives  that  are  ended 
in  the  river.  I  do  not  know  how  or  why  it  happens,  or 
that  it  is  more  than  a  mere  coincidence.  But  there  it  is. 
Year  by  year  the  balance  is  struck — a  few  more,  a  few  less 
— substantially  the  same  when  the  record  is  closed. 


THE  TRENCH  IN  THE  POTTER'S  FIELD. 


CHAPTER  XV. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CHILDREN. 


THE  problem  of  the  children  becomes,  in  these  swarms, 
to  the  last  degree  perplexing.  Their  very  number 
make  one  stand  aghast.  I  have  already  given  instances  of 
the  packing  of  the  child  population  in  East  Side  tenements. 
They  might  be  continued  indefinitely  until  the  array  would 
be  enough  to  startle  any  community.  For,  be  it  remem- 
bered, these  children  with  the  training  they  receive — or 
do  not  receive — with  the  instincts  they  inherit  and  absorb 
in  their  growing  up,  are  to  be  our  future  rulers,  if  our 
theory  of  government  is  worth  anything.  More  than  a 
working  majority  of  our  voters  now  register  from  the 
tenements.  I  counted  the  other  day  the  little  ones,  up  to 
ten  years  or  so,  in  a  Bayard  Street  tenement  that  for  a 
yard  has  a  triangular  space  in  the  centre  with  sides  four- 
teen or  fifteen  feet  long,  just  room  enough  for  a  row  of 
ill-smelling  closets  at  the  base  of  the  triangle  and  a  hy- 
drant at  the  apex.  There  was  about  as  much  light  in  this 
"  yard  "  as  in  the  average  cellar.  I  gave  up  my  self-im- 
posed task  in  despair  when  I  had  counted  one  hundred 
and  twenty-eight  in  forty  families.  Thirteen  I  had 
missed,  or  not  found  in.  Applying  the  average  for  the 
forty  to  the  whole  fifty-three,  the  house  contained  one 
hundred  and  seventy  children.  It  is  not  the  only  time  I 
have  had  to  give  up  such  census  work.  I  have  in  mind 
an  alley — an  inlet  rather  to  a  row  of  rear  tenements — that 


180 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


is  either  two  or  four  feet  wide  according  as  the  wall  of  the 
crazy  old  building  that  gives  on  it  bulges  out  or  in.  I 
tried  to  count  the  children  that  swarmed  there,  but  could 
not.  Sometimes  I  have  doubted  that  anybody  knows  just 
how  many  there  are  about.  Bodies  of  drowned  children 
turn  up  in  the  rivers  right  along  in  summer  whom  no  one 
seems  to  know  anything  about.  When  last  spring  some 
workmen,  while  moving  a  pile  of  lumber  on  a  North  River 
pier,  found  under  the  last  plank  the  body  of  a  little  lad 
crushed  to  death,  no  one  had  missed  a  boy,  though  his 
parents  afterward  turned  up.  The  truant  officer  assuredly 
does  not  know,  though  he  spends  his  life  trying  to  find 
out,  somewhat  illogically,  perhaps,  since  the  department 
that  employs  him  admits  that  thousands  of  poor  children 
are  crowded  out  of  the  schools  year  by  year  for  want  of 
room.  There  was  a  big  tenement  in  the  Sixth  Ward,  now 
happily  appropriated  by  the  beneficent  spirit  of  business 
that  blots  out  so  many  foul  spots  in  New  York — it  figured 
not  long  ago  in  the  official  reports  as  "  an  out-and-out  hog- 
pe7i  " — that  had  a  record  of  one  hundred  and  two  arrests 
in  four  years  among  its  four  hundred  and  seventy-eight 
tenants,  fifty-seven  of  them  for  drunken  and  disorderly 
conduct.  I  do  not  know  how  many  children  there  were 
in  it,  but  the  inspector  reported  that  he  found  only  seven 
in  the  whole  house  who  owned  that  they  went  to  school. 
The  rest  gathered  all  the  instruction  they  received  run- 
ning for  beer  for  their  elders.  Some  of  them  claimed  the 
"  flat "  as  their  home  as  a  mere  matter  of  form.  They 
slept  in  the  streets  at  night.  The  official  came  upon  a 
little  party  of  four  drinking  beer  out  of  the  cover  of  a 
milk-can  in  the  hallway.  They  were  of  the  seven  good 
boys  and  proved  their  claim  to  the  title  by  offering  him 
some. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CHILDREN. 


181 


The  old  question,  what  to  do  with  the  boy,  assumes  a 
new  and  serious  phase  in  the  tenements.  Under  the  best 
conditions  found  there,  it  is  not  easily  answered.  In  nine 
cases  out  of  ten  lie  would  make  an  excellent  mechanic,  if 
trained  early  to  work  at  a  trade,  for  he  is  neither  dull  nor 
slow,  but  the  short-sighted  despotism  of  the  trades  unions 
lias  practically  closed  that  avenue  to  him.  Trade-schools, 
however  excellent,  cannot  supply  the  opportunity  thus 
denied  him,  and  at  the  outset  the  boy  stands  condemned 
by  his  own  to  low  and  ill-paid  drudgery,  held  down  by 
the  hand  that  of  all  should  labor  to  raise  him.  Home, 
the  greatest  factor  of  all  in  the  training  of  the  young,  means 
nothing  to  him  but  a  pigeon-hole  in  a  coop  along  with  so 
many  other  human  animals.  Its  influence  is  scarcely  of 
the  elevating  kind,  if  it  have  any.  The  very  games  at 
which  he  takes  a  hand  in  the  street  become  polluting  in 
its  atmosphere.  With  no  steady  hand  to  guide  him,  the 
boy  takes  naturally  to  idle  ways.  Caught  in  the  street 
by  the  truant  officer,  or  by  the  agents  of  the  Children's 
Societies,  peddling,  perhaps,  or  begging,  to  help  out  the 
family  resources,  he  runs  the  risk  of  being  sent  to  a  re- 
formatory, where  contact  with  vicious  boys  older  than  him- 
self soon  develop  the  latent  possibilities  for  evil  that  lie 
hidden  in  him.  The  city  has  no  Truant  Home  in  which 
to  keep  him,  and  all  efforts  of  the  children's  friends  to  en- 
force school  attendance  are  paralyzed  by  this  want.  The 
risk  of  the  reformatory  is  too  great.  What  is  done  in 
the  end  is  to  let  him  take  chances — with  the  chances  all 
against  him.  The  result  is  the  rough  young  savage,  fa- 
miliar from  the  street.  Rough  as  he  is,  if  any  one  doubt 
that  this  child  of  common  clay  have  in  him  the  instinct 
of  beauty,  of  love  for  the  ideal  of  which  his  life  has  no 
embodiment,  let  him  put  the  matter  to  the  test.  Let 


182 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


him  take  into  a  tenement  block  a  handful  of  flowers 
from  the  fields  and  watch  the  brightened  faces,  the  sod- 
den abandonment  of  play  and  fight  that  go  ever  hand  in 
hand  where  there  is  no  elbow-room,  the  wild  entreaty  for 
"  posies,"  the  eager  love  with  which  the  little  messengers 
of  peace  are  shielded,  once  possessed  ;  then  let  him  change 
his  mind.  I  have  seen  an  armful  of  daisies  keep  the 
peace  of  a  block  better  than  a  policeman  and  his  club, 
seen  instincts  awaken  under  their  gentle  appeal,  whose 
very  existence  the  soil  in  which  they  grew  made  seem  a 
mockery.  I  have  not  forgotten  the  deputation  of  raga- 
muffins from  a  Mulberry  Street  alley  that  knocked  at  my 
office  door  one  morning  on  a  mysterious  expedition  for 
flowers,  not  for  themselves,  but  for  "  a  lady,"  and  having 
obtained  what  they  wanted,  trooped  off  to  bestow  them,  a 
ragged  and  dirty  little  band,  with  a  solemnity  that  was 
quite  unusual.  It  was  not  until  an  old  man  called  the 
next  day  to  thank  me  for  the  flowers  that  I  found  out 
they  had  decked  the  bier  of  a  pauper,  in  the  dark  rear 
room  where  she  lay  waiting  in  her  pine-board  coffin  for 
the  city's  hearse.  Yet,  as  I  knew,  that  dismal  alley  with 
its  bare  brick  walls,  between  which  no  sun  ever  rose  or 
set,  was  the  world  of  those  children.  It  filled  their  young 
lives.  Probably  not  one  of  them  had  ever  been  out  of  the 
sight  of  it.  They  were  too  dirty,  too  ragged,  and  too  gen- 
erally disreputable,  too  well  hidden  in  their  slum  besides, 
to  come  into  line  with  the  Fresh  Air  summer  boarders. 

With  such  human  instincts  and  cravings,  forever  unsat- 
isfied, turned  into  a  haunting  curse ;  with  appetite  ground 
to  keenest  edge  by  a  hunger  that  is  never  fed,  the  chil- 
dren of  the  poor  grow  up  in  joyless  homes  to  lives  of 
wearisome  toil  that  claims  them  at  an  age  when  the  play 
of  their  happier  fellows  has  but  just  begun.    Has  a  yard 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CHILDREN. 


183 


of  turf  been  laid  and  a  vine  been  coaxed  to  grow  within 
their  reach,  they  are  banished  and  barred  out  from  it 
as  from  a  heaven  that  is  not  for  such  as  they.  I  came 
upon  a  couple  of  youngsters  in  a  Mulberry  Street  yard  a 
while  ago  that  were  chalking  on  the  fence  their  first  lesson 
in  "  writin'."  And  this  is  what  they  wrote:  "Keeb  of 
te  Grass.''  They  had  it  by  heart,  for  there  was  not,  I 
verily  believe,  a  green  sod  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile. 
Home  to  them  is  an  empty  name.  Pleasure  ?  A  gentle- 
man once  catechized  a  ragged  class  in  a  down-town  public 
school  on  this  point,  and  recorded  the  result :  Out  of  for- 
ty-eight boys  twenty  had  never  seen  the  Brooklyn  Bridge 
that  was  scarcely  five  minutes'  walk  away,  three  only  had 
been  in  Central  Park,  fifteen  had  known  the  joy  of  a  ride 
in  a  horse-car.  The  street,  with  its  ash-barrels  and  its 
dirt,  the  river  that  runs  foul  with  mud,  are  their  domain. 
What  training  they  receive  is  picked  up  there.  And  they 
are  apt  pupils.  If  the  mud  and  the  dirt  are  easily  re- 
flected in  their  lives,  what  wonder?  Scarce  half-grown, 
such  lads  as  these  confront  the  world  with  the  challenge 

to  give  them  their  due,  too  long  withheld,  or  .  Our 

jails  supply  the  answer  to  the  alternative. 

A  little  fellow  who  seemed  clad  in  but  a  single  rag  was 
among  the  flotsam  and  jetsam  stranded  at  Police  Head- 
quarters one  day  last  summer.  Xo  one  knew  where  he 
came  from  or  where  he  belonged.  The  bov  himself  knew 
as  little  about  it  as  anybody,  and  was  the  least  anxious  to 
have  light  shed  on  the  subject  after  he  had  spent  a  night 
in  the  matron's  nursery.  The  discovery  that  beds  were 
provided  for  boys  to  sleep  in  there,  and  that  he  could  have 
"  a  whole  egg  "  and  three  slices  of  bread  for  breakfast  put 
him  on  the  best  of  terms  with  the  world  in  general,  and 
he  decided  that  Headquarters  was  "  a  bully  place."  He 


184 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES, 


sang  "McGinty  "  all  through,  with  Tenth  Avenue  varia- 
tions, for  the  police,  and  then  settled  down  to  the  serious 
business  of  giving  an  account  of  himself.  The  examina- 
tion went  on  after  this  fashion  : 

"  Where  do  you  go  to  church,  my  boy  ?  " 

"  We  don't  have  no  clothes  to  go  to  church."  And  in- 
deed his  appearance,  as  he  was,  in  the  door  of  any  Kew 
York  church  would  have  caused  a  sensation. 

"  "Well,  where  do  you  go  to  school,  then  ?  " 

"I  don't  go  to  school,"  with  a  snort  of  contempt. 

"  Where  do  you  buy  your  bread  ?  " 

"  We  don't  buy  no  bread ;  we  buy  beer,"  said  the  boy,  and 
it  was  eventually  the  saloon  that  led  the  police  as  a  land- 
mark to  his  "  home."  It  was  worthy  of  the  boy.  As  he 
had  said,  his  only  bed  was  a  heap  of  dirty  straw  on  the 
floor,  his  daily  diet  a  crust  in  the  morning,  nothing  else. 

Into  the  rooms  of  the  Children's  Aid  Society  were  led 
two  little  girls  whose  father  had  "  busted  up  the  house  " 
and  put  them  on  the  street  after  their  mother  died.  An- 
other, who  was  turned  out  by  her  step-mother  "  because 
she  had  five  of  her  own  and  could  not  afford  to  keep  her," 
could  not  remember  ever  having  been  in  church  or  Sun- 
day-school, and  only  knew  the  name  of  Jesus  through 
hearing  people  swear  by  it.  She  had  no  idea  what  they 
meant.  These  were  specimens  of  the  overflow  from  the 
tenements  of  our  home-heathen  that  are  growing  up  in 
Kew  York's  streets  to-day,  while  tender-hearted  men  and 
women  are  busying  themselves  with  the  socks  and  the 
hereafter  of  well-fed  little  Hottentots  thousands  of  miles 
away.  According  to  Canon  Taylor,  of  York,  one  hun- 
dred and  nine  missionaries  in  the  four  fields  of  Persia, 
Palestine,  Arabia,  and  Egypt  spent  one  year  and  sixty 
thousand  dollars  in  converting  one  little  heathen  girl.  If 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CHILDREN.  1S5 


there  is  nothing  the  matter  with  those  missionaries,  they 
might  come  to  Xew  York  with  a  good  deal  better  pros- 
pect of  success. 

By  those  who  lay  flattering  unction  to  their  souls  in 
the  knowledge  that  to-day  New  York  has,  at  all  events,  no 
brood  of  the  gutters  of  tender  years  that  can  be  homeless 
long  unheeded,  let  it  be  remembered  well  through  what 
effort  this  judgment  has  been  averted.  In  thirty-seven 
years  the  Children's  Aid  Society,  that  came  into  existence 
as  an  emphatic  protest  against  the  tenement  corruption  of 
the  young,  has  sheltered  quite  three  hundred  thousand 
outcast,  homeless,  and  orphaned  children  in  its  lodging- 
houses,  and  has  found  homes  in  the  AVest  for  seventy 
thousand  that  had  none.  Doubtless,  as  a  mere  stroke  of 
finance,  the  five  millions  and  a  half  thus  spent  were  a 
wiser  investment  than  to  have  let  them  grow  up  thieves 
and  thugs.  In  the  last  fifteen  years  of  this  tireless  battle 
for  the  safety  of  the  State  the  intervention  of  the  Society 
for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Children  has  been  in- 
voked for  13S,S91  little  ones :  it  has  thrown  its  protection 
around  more  than  twenty-five  thousand  helpless  children, 
and  has  convicted  nearly  sixteen  thousand  wretches  of 
child-beating  and  abuse.  Add  to  this  the  standing  army 
of  fifteen  thousand  dependent  children  in  Xew  York's 
asylums  and  institutions,  and  some  idea  is  gained  of  the 
crop  that  is  garnered  day  by  day  in  the  tenements,  of  the 
enormous  force  employed  to  check  their  inroads  on  our 
social  life,  and  of  the  cause  for  apprehension  that  would 
exist  did  their  efforts  flag  for  ever  so  brief  a  time. 

Nothing  is  now  better  understood  than  that  the  rescue 
of  the  children  is  the  key  to  the  problem  of  city  poverty, 
as  presented  for  our  solution  to-day  ;  that  character  may 
be  formed  where  to  reform  it  would  be  a  hopeless  task. 


186 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


The  concurrent  testimony  of  all  who  have  to  undertake  it 
at  a  later  stage  :  that  the  young  are  naturally  neither  vi- 
cious nor  hardened,  simply  weak  and  undeveloped,  except 
by  the  bad  influences  of  the  street,  makes  this  duty  all  the 
more  urgent  as  well  as  hopeful.  Helping  hands  are  held 
out  on  every  side.  To  private  charity  the  municipality 
leaves  the  entire  care  of  its  proletariat  of  tender  years, 
lulling  its  conscience  to  sleep  with  liberal  appropriations 
of  money  to  foot  the  bills.  Indeed,  it  is  held  by  those 
whose  opinions  are  entitled  to  weight  that  it  is  far  too 
liberal  a  paymaster  for  its  own  best  interests  and  those  of 
its  wards.  It  deals  with  the  evil  in  the  seed  to  a  limited 
extent  in  gathering  in  the  outcast  babies  from  the  streets. 
To  the  ripe  fruit  the  gates  of  its  prisons,  its  reformatories, 
and  its  workhouses  are  opened  wide  the  year  round. 
What  the  showing  would  be  at  this  end  of  the  line  were  it 
not  for  the  barriers  wise  charity  has  thrown  across  the 
broad  highway  to  ruin — is  building  day  by  day — may  be 
measured  by  such  results  as  those  quoted  above  in  the 
span  of  a  single  life. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 


WAIFS  OF  THE  CITY'S  SLUMS. 

FIRST  among  these  barriers  is  the  Foundling  Asylum. 
It  stands  at  the  very  outset  of  the  waste  of  life  that 
goes  on  in  a  population  of  nearly  two  millions  of  people  ; 
powerless  to  prevent  it,  though  it  gather  in  the  outcasts 
by  night  and  by  day.  In  a  score  of  years  an  army  of 
twenty-five  thousand  of  these  forlorn  little  waifs  have  cried 
out  from  the  streets  of  New  York  in  arraignment  of  a 
Christian  civilization  under  the  blessings  of  which  the  in- 
stinct of  motherhood  even  was  smothered  by  poverty  and 
want.  Only  the  poor  abandon  their  children.  The  sto- 
ries of  richly-dressed  foundlings  that  are  dished  up  in  the 
newspapers  at  intervals  are  pure  fiction.  Not  one  in- 
stance of  even  a  well-dressed  infant  having  been  picked  up 
in  the  streets  is  on  record.  They  come  in  rags,  a  news- 
paper often  the  only  wrap,  semi-occasionally  one  in  a  clean 
slip  with  some  evidence  of  loving  care  ;  a  little  slip  of 
paper  pinned  on,  perhaps,  with  some  such  message  as  this 
I  once  read,  in  a  woman's  trembling  hand :  "  Take  care  of 
Johnny,  for  God's  sake.  I  cannot."  But  even  that  is 
the  rarest  of  all  happenings. 

The  city  divides  with  the  Sisters  of  Charity  the  task  of 
gathering  them  in.  The  real  foundlings,  the  children  of 
the  gutter  that  are  picked  up  by  the  police,  are  the  city's 
wards.  In  midwinter,  when  the  poor  shiver  in  their 
homes,  and  in  the  dog-days  when  the  fierce  heat  and  foul 


188 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


air  of  the  tenements  smother  their  babies  by  thousands, 
they  are  found,  sometimes  three  and  four  in  a  night, 
in  hallways,  in  areas  and  on  the  doorsteps  of  the  rich, 
with  whose  comfort  in  luxurious  homes  the  wretched 
mother  somehow  connects  her  own  misery.  Perhaps,  as 
the  drowning  man  clutches  at  a  straw,  she  hopes  that 
these  happier  hearts  may  have  love  to  spare  even  for  her 
little  one.  In  this  she  is  mistaken.  Unauthorized  babies 
especially  are  not  popular  in  the  abodes  of  the  wealthy. 
It  never  happens  outside  of  the  story-books  that  a  baby 
so  deserted  finds  home  and  friends  at  once.  Its  career, 
though  rather  more  official,  is  less  romantic,  and  gener- 
ally brief.  After  a  night  spent  at  Police  Headquarters  it 
travels  up  to  the  Infants'  Hospital  on  Randall's  Island  in 
the  morning,  fitted  out  with  a  number  and  a  bottle,  that 
seldom  see  much  wear  before  they  are  laid  aside  for  a  fresh 
recruit.  Few  outcast  babies  survive  their  desertion  long. 
Murder  is  the  true  name  of  the  mother's  crime  in  eight 
cases  out  of  ten.  Of  508  babies  received  at  the  Randall's 
Island  Hospital  last  year  333  died,  65.55  per  cent.  But 
of  the  508  only  170  were  picked  up  in  the  streets,  and 
among  these  the  mortality  was  much  greater,  probably 
nearer  ninety  per  cent.,  if  the  truth  were  told.  The  rest 
were  born  in  the  hospitals.  The  high  mortality  among 
the  foundlings  is  not  to  be  marvelled  at.  The  wonder  is, 
rather,  that  any  survive.  The  stormier  the  night,  the  more 
certain  is  the  police  nursery  to  echo  with  the  feeble  cries 
of  abandoned  babes.  Often  they  come  half  dead  from 
exposure.  One  live  baby  came  in  a  little  pine  coffin  which 
a  policeman  found  an  inhuman  wretch  trying  to  bury  in 
an  up-town  lot.  But  many  do  not  live  to  be  officially 
registered  as  a  charge  upon  the  county.  Seventy-two 
dead  babies  were  picked  up  in  the  streets  last  year.  Some 


WAIFS  OF  THE  CITY'S  SLUMS. 


189 


of  them  were  doubtless  put  out  by  very  poor  parents  to 
save  funeral  expenses.  In  hard  times  the  number  of  dead 
and  live  foundlings  always  increases  very  noticeably.  But 
whether  travelling  by  way  of  the  Morgue  or  the  Infants' 
Hospital,  the  little  army  of  waifs  meets,  reunited  soon,  in 
the  trench  in  the  Potter's  Field  where,  if  no  medical  stu- 
dent is  in  need  of  a  subject,  they  are  laid  in  squads  of  a 
dozen. 

Most  of  the  foundlings  come  from  the  East  Side,  where 
they  are  left  by  young  mothers  without  wedding-rings 
or  other  name  than  their  own  to  bestow  upon  the  baby, 
returning  from  the  island  hospital  to  face  an  unpitying 
world  with  the  evidence  of  their  shame.  Kot  infrequently 
they  wear  the  bed-tick  regimentals  of  the  Public  Charities, 
and  thus  their  origin  is  easily  enough  traced.  Oftener  no 
ray  of  light  penetrates  the  gloom,  and  no  effort  is  made  to 
probe  the  mystery  of  sin  and  sorrow.  This  also  is  the 
policy  pursued  in  the  great  Foundling  Asylum  of  the 
Sisters  of  Charity  in  Sixty-eighth  Street,  known  all  over 
the  world  as  Sister  Irene's  Asylum.  Years  ago  the  crib 
that  now  stands  just  inside  the  street  door,  under  the 
great  main  portal,  was  placed  outside  at  night  ;  but  it 
filled  up  too  rapidly.  The  babies  took  to  coming  in  little 
squads  instead  of  in  single  file,  and  in  self-defence  the 
sisters  were  forced  to  take  the  cradle  in.  Xow  the  mother 
must  bring  her  child  inside  and  put  it  in  the  crib  where 
she  is  seen  by  the  sister  on  guard.  Iso  effort  is  made  to 
question  her,  or  discover  the  child's  antecedents,  but  she 
is  asked  to  stay  and  nurse  her  own  and  another  baby. 
If  she  refuses,  she  is  allowed  to  depart  unhindered.  If 
willing,  she  enters  at  once  into  the  great  family  of  the 
good  Sister  who  in  twenty-one  years  has  gathered  as  many 
thousand  homeless  babies  into  her  fold.   One  was  brought 


190 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


in  when  I  was  last  in  the  asylum,  in  the  middle  of  July, 
that  received  in  its  crib  the  number  20715.  The  death- 
rate  is  of  course  lowered  a  good  deal  where  exposure  of 
the  child  is  prevented.  Among  the  eleven  hundred  in- 
fants in  the  asylum  it  was  something  over  nineteen  per 
cent,  last  year  ;  but  among  those  actually  received  in  the 
twelvemonth  nearer  twice  that  figure.  Even  the  nineteen 
per  cent.,  remarkably  low  for  a  Foundling  Asylum,  was 
equal  to  the  startling  death-rate  of  Gotham  Court  in  the 
cholera  scourge. 

Four  hundred  and  sixty  mothers,  who  could  not  or 
would  not  keep  their  own  babies,  did  voluntary  penance 
for  their  sin  in  the  asylum  last  year  by  nursing  a  strange 
waif  besides  their  own  until  both  should  be  strong  enough 
to  take  their  chances  in  life's  battle.  An  even  larger  num- 
ber than  the  eleven  hundred  were  "  pay  babies,"  put  out 
to  be  nursed  by  "  mothers  "  outside  the  asylum.  The 
money  thus  earned  pays  the  rent  of  hundreds  of  poor 
families.  It  is  no  trifle,  quite  half  of  the  quarter  of  a 
million  dollars  contributed  annually  by  the  city  for  the 
support  of  the  asylum.  The  procession  of  these  nurse- 
mothers,  when  they  come  to  the  asylum  on  the  first 
Wednesday  of  each  month  to  receive  their  pay  and  have 
the  babies  inspected  by  the  sisters,  is  one  of  the  sights  of 
the  city.  The  nurses,  who  are  under  strict  supervision, 
grow  to  love  their  little  charges  and  part  from  them  with 
tears  when,  at  the  age  of  four  or  five,  they  are  sent  to 
Western  homes  to  be  adopted.  The  sisters  carefully  en- 
courage the  home-feeling  in  the  child  as  their  strongest 
ally  in  seeking  its  mental  and  moral  elevation,  and  the  tod- 
dlers depart  happy  to  join  their  "  papas  and  mammas  99  in 
the  far-away,  unknown  home. 

An  infinitely  more  fiendish,  if  to  surface  appearances 


WAIFS  OF  THE  CITY'S  SLUMS. 


191 


less  deliberate,  plan  of  child-murder  than  desertion  has 
flourished  in  New  York  for  years  under  the  title  of  baby- 
farming.  The  name,  put  into  plain  English,  means  starv- 
ing babies  to  death.  The  law  has  fought  this  most  hein- 
ous of  crimes  by  compelling  the  registry  of  all  baby-farms. 
As  well  might  it  require  all  persons  intending  murder  to 
register  their  purpose  with  time  and  place  of  the  deed  un- 
der the  penalty  of  exemplary  fines.  Murderers  do  not 
hang  out  a  shingle.  "  Baby-farms,"  said  once  Mr.  El- 
bridge  T.  Gerry,  the  President  of  the  Society  charged  with 
the  execution  of  the  law  that  was  passed  through  his 
efforts,  "  are  concerns  by  means  of  which  persons,  usually 
of  disreputable  character,  eke  out  a  living  by  taking  two, 
or  three,  or  four  babies  to  board.  They  are  the  charges 
of  outcasts,  or  illegitimate  children.  They  feed  them  on 
sour  milk,  and  give  them  paregoric  to  keep  them  quiet, 
until  they  die,  when  they  get  some  young  medical  man 
without  experience  to  sign  a  certificate  to  the  Board  of 
Health  that  the  child  died  of  inanition,  and  so  the  matter 
ends.  The  baby  is  dead,  and  there  is  no  one  to  com- 
plain." A  handful  of  baby-farms  have  been  registered 
and  licensed  by  the  Board  of  Health  with  the  approval  of 
the  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Children  in 
the  last  five  years,  but  none  of  this  kind.  The  devil  keeps 
the  only  complete  register  to  be  found  anywhere.  Their 
trace  is  found  oftenest  by  the  coroner  or  the  police ; 
sometimes  they  may  be  discovered  hiding  in  the  advertis- 
ing columns  of  certain  newspapers,  under  the  guise  of  the 
scarcely  less  heartless  traffic  in  helpless  children  that  is 
dignified  with  the  pretence  of  adoption — for  cash.  An 
idea  of  how  this  scheme  works  was  obtained  through  the 
disclosures  in  a  celebrated  divorce  case,  a  year  or  two 
ago.    The  society  has  among  its  records  a  very  recent 


192 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


case  *  of  a  baby  a  week  old  (Baby  "  Blue  Eyes  ")  that  was 
offered  for  sale — adoption,  the  dealer  called  it — in  a  news- 
paper. The  agent  bought  it  after  some  haggling  for  a 
dollar,  and  arrested  the  woman  slave-trader ;  but  the  law 
was  powerless  to  punish  her  for  her  crime.  Twelve  un- 
fortunate women  awaiting  dishonored  motherhood  were 
found  in  her  house. 

One  gets  a  glimpse  of  the  frightful  depths  to  which 
human  nature,  perverted  by  avarice  bred  of  ignorance  and 
rasping  poverty,  can  descend,  in  the  mere  suggestion  of 
systematic  insurance  for  profit  of  children's  lives.  A 
woman  was  put  on  trial  in  this  city  last  year  for  incredible 
cruelty  in  her  treatment  of  a  step-child.  The  evidence 
aroused  a  strong  suspicion  that  a  pitifully  small  amount 
of  insurance  on  the  child's  life  was  one  of  the  motives  for 
the  woman's  savagery.  A  little  investigation  brought  out 
the  fact  that  three  companies  that  were  in  the  business  of 
insuring  children's  lives,  for  sums  varying  from  $17  up, 
had  issued  not  less  than  a  million  such  policies  !  The 
premiums  ranged  from  five  to  twenty-five  cents  a  week. 
What  untold  horrors  this  business  may  conceal  was  sug- 
gested by  a  formal  agreement  entered  into  by  some  of  the 
companies,  a  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  speculation  in 
the  insurance  of  children's  lives."  By  the  terms  of  this 
compact,  "  no  higher  premium  than  ten  cents  could  be  ac- 
cepted on  children  under  six  years  old."  Barbarism  for- 
sooth !  Did  ever  heathen  cruelty  invent  a  more  fiendish 
plot  than  the  one  written  down  between  the  lines  of  this 
legal  paper? 

It  is  with  a  sense  of  glad  relief  that  one  turns  from  this 
misery  to  the  brighter  page  of  the  helping  hands  stretched 

*  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Children,  Case  42,028,  May 
16,  1889.  " 


WAIFS  OF  THE  CITY'S  SLUMS. 


193 


forth  on  every  side  to  save  the  young  and  the  helpless. 
New  York  is,  I  firmly  believe,  the  most  charitable  city  in 
the  world.  Xowhere  is  there  so  eager  a  readiness  to  help, 
when  it  is  known  that  help  is  worthily  wanted ;  nowhere 
are  such  armies  of  devoted  workers,  nowhere  such  abun- 
dance of  means  ready  to  the  hand  of  those  who  know  the 
need  and  how  rightly  to  supply  it.  Its  poverty,  its  slums, 
and  its  suffering  are  the  result  of  unprecedented  growth 
with  the  consequent  disorder  and  crowding,  and  the  com- 
mon penalty  of  metropolitan  greatness.  If  the  structure 
shows  signs  of  being  top-heavy,  evidences  are  not  wanting 
— they  are  multiplying  day  by  day — that  patient  toilers 
are  at  work  among  the  underpinnings.  The  Day  Nur- 
series, the  numberless  Kindergartens  and  charitable  schools 
in  the  poor  quarters,  the  Fresh  Air  Funds,  the  thousand 
and  one  charities  that  in  one  way  or  another  reach  the 
homes  and  the  lives  of  the  poor  with  sweetening  touch,  are 
proof  that  if  much  is  yet  to  be  done,  if  the  need  only 
grows  with  the  effort,  hearts  and  hands  will  be  found  to 
do  it  in  ever-increasing  measure.  Black  as  the  cloud  is 
it  has  a  silver  lining,  bright  with  promise.  New  York  is 
to-day  a  hundredfold  cleaner,  better,  purer,  city  than  it 
was  even  ten  years  ago. 

Two  powerful  agents  that  were  among  the  pioneers  in 
this  work  of  moral  and  physical  regeneration  stand  in 
Paradise  Park  to-day  as  milestones  on  the  rocky,  uphill 
road.  The  handful  of  noble  women,  who  braved  the  foul 
depravity  of  the  Old  Brewery  to  rescue  its  child  victims, 
rolled  away  the  first  and  heaviest  bowlder,  which  legisla- 
tures and  city  councils  had  tackled  in  vain.  The  Five 
Points  Mission  and  the  Five  Points  House  of  Industry 
have  accomplished  what  no  machinery  of  government 
availed  to  do.  Sixty  thousand  children  have  been  res- 
13 


194 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


cued  by  them  from  the  streets  and  had  their  little  feet  set 
in  the  better  way.  Their  work  still  goes  on,  increasing 
and  gathering  in  the  waifs,  instructing  and  feeding  them, 
and  helping  their  parents  with  advice  and  more  substan- 
tial aid.  Their  charity  knows  not  creed  or  nationality. 
The  House  of  Industry  is  an  enormous  nursery-school 
with  an  average  of  more  than  four  hundred  day  scholars 
and  constant  boarders — "outsiders  "  and  "  insiders."  Its 
influence  is  felt  for  many  blocks  around  in  that  crowded 
part  of  the  city.  It  is  one  of  the  most  touching  sights  in 
the  world  to  see  a  score  of  babies,  rescued  from  homes  of 
brutality  and  desolation,  where  no  other  blessing  than  a 
drunken  curse  was  ever  heard,  saying  their  prayers  in  the 
nursery  at  bedtime.  Too  often  their  white  night-gowns 
hide  tortured  little  bodies  and  limbs  cruelly  bruised  by  in- 
human hands.  In  the  shelter  of  this  fold  they  are  safe, 
and  a  happier  little  group  one  may  seek  long  and  far  in 
vain. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 


THE   STREET  ARAB. 

"XTOT  all  the  barriers  erected  by  society  against  its 
nether  life,  not  the  labor  of  unnumbered  societies 
for  the  rescue  and  relief  of  its  outcast  waifs,  can  dam  the 
stream  of  homelessness  that  issues  from  a  source  where 
the  very  name  of  home  is  a  mockery.  The  Street  Arab 
is  as  much  of  an  institution  in  New  York  as  Newspaper 
How,  to  which  he  gravitates  naturally,  following  his  Bo- 
hemian instinct.  Crowded  out  of  the  tenements  to  shift 
for  himself,  and  quite  ready  to  do  it,  he  meets  there  the 
host  of  adventurous  runaways  from  every  State  in  the 
Union  and  from  across  the  sea,  whom  New  York  attracts 
with  a  queer  fascination,  as  it  attracts  the  older  emigrants 
from  all  parts  of  the  world.  A  census  of  the  population 
in  the  Newsboys'  Lodging-house  on  any  night  will  show 
such  an  odd  mixture  of  small  humanity  as  could  hardly  be 
got  together  in  any  other  spot.  It  is  a  mistake  to  think 
that  they  are  helpless  little  creatures,  to  be  pitied  and  cried 
over  because  they  are  alone  in  the  world.  The  unmerciful 
"  guying"  the  good  man  would  receive,  who  went  to  them 
with  such  a  programme,  would  soon  convince  him  that 
that  sort  of  pity  was  wasted,  and  would  very  likely  give 
him  the  idea  that  they  were  a  set  of  hardened  little  scoun- 
drels, quite  beyond  the  reach  of  missionary  effort. 

But  that  would  only  be  his  second  mistake.  The  Street 
Arab  has  all  the  faults  and  all  the  virtues  of  the  lawless- 


THE  STREET  ARAB. 


197 


life  he  leads.  Vagabond  that  he  is,  acknowledging  no 
authority  and  owing  no  allegiance  to  anybody  or  anything, 
with  his  grimy  fist  raised  against  society  whenever  it  tries 
to  coerce  him,  he  is  as  bright  and  sharp  as  the  weasel, 
which,  among  all  the  predatory  beasts,  he  most  resembles. 
His  sturdy  independence,  love  of  freedom  and  absolute 
self-reliance,  together  with  his  rude  sense  of  justice  that 
enables  him  to  govern  his  little  community,  not  always  in 
accordance  with  municipal  law  or  city  ordinances,  but  often 
a  good  deal  closer  to  the  saving  line  of  "  doing  to  others 
as  one  would  be  done  by  " —  these  are  strong  handles  by 
which  those  who  know  how  can  catch  the  boy  and  make 
him  useful.  Successful  bankers,  clergymen,  and  lawyers 
all  over  the  country,  statesmen  in  some  instances  of  na- 
tional repute,  bear  evidence  in  their  lives  to  the  potency 
of  such  missionary  efforts.  There  is  scarcely  a  learned 
profession,  or  branch  of  honorable  business,  that  has  not 
in  the  last  twenty  years  borrowed  some  of  its  brightest 
light  from  the  poverty  and  gloom  of  New  York's  streets. 

Anyone,  whom  business  or  curiosity  has  taken  through 
Park  Row  or  across  Printing  House  Square  in  the  mid- 
night hour,  when  the  ail*  is  filled  with  the  roar  of  great 
presses  spinning  with  printers'  ink  on  endless  rolls  of  white 
paper  the  history  of  the  world  in  the  twenty-four  hours 
that  have  just  passed  away,  has  seen  little  groups  of  these 
boys  hanging  about  the  newspaper  offices ;  in  winter, 
when  snow  is  on  the  streets,  fighting  for  warm  spots 
around  the  grated  vent-holes  that  let  out  the  heat  and 
steam  from  the  underground  press-rooms  with  their  noise 
and  clatter,  and  in  summer  playing  craps  and  7-11  on  the 
curb  for  their  hard-earned  pennies,  with  all  the  absorbing 
concern  of  hardened  gamblers.  This  is  their  beat.  Here 
the  agent  of  the  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to 


198 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


Children  finds  those  he  thinks  too  young  for  "  business," 
but  does  not  always  capture  them.  Like  rabbits  in  their 
burrows,  the  little  ragamuffins  sleep  with  at  least  one  eye 
open,  and  every  sense  alert  to  the  approach  of  danger  :  of 
their  enemy,  the  policeman,  whose  chief  business  in  life 
is  to  move  them  on,  and  of  the  agent  bent  on  robbing 
them  of  their  cherished  freedom.  At  the  first  warning 
shout  they  scatter  and  are  off.  To  pursue  them  would  be 
like  chasing  the  fleet-footed  mountain  goat  in  his  rocky 
fastnesses.  There  is  not  an  open  "door,  a  hidden  turn  or 
runway  which  they  do  not  know,  with  lots  of  secret  pas- 
sages and  short  cuts  no  one  else  ever  found.  To  steal  a 
march  on  them  is  the  only  way.  There  is  a  coal  chute 
from  the  sidewalk  to  the  boiler-room  in  the  sub-cellar  of 
the  Post  Office  which  the  Society's  officer  found  the  boys 
had  made  into  a  sort  of  toboggan  slide  to  a  snug  berth  in 
wintry  weather.  They  used  to  slyly  raise  the  cover  in  the 
street,  slide  down  in  single  file,  and  snuggle  up  to  the 
warm  boiler  out  of  harm's  way,  as  they  thought.  It 
proved  a  trap,  however.  The  agent  slid  down  himself 
one  cold  night — there  was  no  other  way  of  getting  there 
— and,  landing  right  in  the  midst  of  the  sleeping  colony, 
had  it  at  his  mercy.  After  repeated  raids  upon  their 
headquarters,  the  boys  forsook  it  last  summer,  and  were 
next  found  herding  under  the  shore-end  of  one  of  the 
East  Biver  banana  docks,  where  they  had  fitted  up  a  reg- 
ular club-room  that  was  shared  by  thirty  or  forty  home- 
less boys  and  about  a  million  rats. 

Newspaper  Row  is  merely  their  headquarters.  They 
are  to  be  found  ail  over  the  city,  these  Street  Arabs, 
where  the  neighborhood  offers  a  chance  of  picking  up  a 
living  in  the  daytime  and  of  "  turning  in  "  at  night  with 
a  promise  of  security  from  surprise.    In  warm  weather  a 


THE  STREET  ARAB. 


199 


truck  in  the  street,  a  convenient  out-house,  or  a  dug-out 
in  a  hay-barge  at  the  wharf  make  good  bunks.  Two  were 
found  making  their  nest  once  in  the  end  of  a  big  iron  pipe 
up  by  the  Harlem  Bridge,  and  an  old  boiler  at  the  East 
River  served  as  an  elegant  flat  for  another  couple,  who 
kept  house  there  with  a  thief  the  police  had  long  sought, 
little  suspecting  that  he  was  hiding  under  their  very  noses 
for  months  together.  When  the  Children's  Aid  Society 
first  opened  its  lodging-houses,  and  with  some  difficulty 
persuaded  the  boys  that  their  charity  was  no  "  pious 
dodge"  to  trap  them  into  a  treasonable  "Sunday-school 
racket,"  its  managers  overheard  a  laughable  discussion 
among  the  boys  in  their  unwontedly  comfortable  beds — 
perhaps  the  first  some  of  them  had  ever  slept  in — as  to 
the  relative  merits  of  the  different  styles  of  their  every- 
day berths.  Preferences  were  divided  between  the  steam- 
grating  and  a  sand-box;  but  the  weight  of  the  evidence 
was  decided  to  be  in  favor  of  the  sand-box,  because,  as  its 
advocate  put  it,  "you  could  curl  all  up  in  it."  The  new 
"  find  "  was  voted  a  good  way  ahead  of  any  previous  ex- 
perience, however.  "My  eyes,  ain't  it  nice  I"  said  one  of 
the  lads,  tucked  in  under  his  blanket  up  to  the  chin,  and 
the  roomful  of  boys  echoed  the  sentiment.  The  com- 
pact silently  made  that  night  between  the  Street  Arabs 
and  their  hosts  has  never  been  broken.  They  have  been 
fast  friends  ever  since. 

Whence  this  army  of  homeless  boys  ?  is  a  question 
often  asked.  The  answer  is  supplied  by  the  procession  of 
mothers  that  go  out  and  in  at  Police  Headquarters  the 
year  round,  inquiring  for  missing  boys,  often  not  until 
they  have  been  gone  for  weeks  and  months,  and  then 
sometimes  rather  as  a  matter  of  decent  form  than  from 
any  real  interest  in  the  lad's  fate.    The  stereotyped  prom- 


200 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


ise  of  tlie  clerks  who  fail  to  find  Iris  name  on  the  books 
among  the  arrests,  that  he  "  will  come  back  when  he  gets 
hungry,"  does  not  always  come  true.  More  likely  he 
went  away  because  he  was  hungry.  Some  are  orphans, 
actually  or  in  effect,  thrown  upon  the  world  when  their 
parents  were  "  sent  up  "  to  the  island  or  to  Sing  Sing, 


and  Willie,  aged  ten  and  eight,  picked  up  by  the  police. 
They  "  didn't  live  nowhere,"  never  went  to  school,  could 
neither  read  nor  write.  Their  twelve-year-old  sister  kept 
house  for  the  father,  who  turned  the  boys  out  to  beg,  or 
steal,  or  starve.  Grinding  poverty  and  hard  work  beyond 
the  years  of  Lhe  lad  ;  blows  and  curses  for  breakfast,  din- 
ner, and  supper ;  all  these  are  recruiting  agents  for  the 
homeless  army.  Sickness  in  the  house,  too  many  mouths 
to  feed : 


"  DIDN'T  LIVE  NOWHERE." 


and  somehow  over- 
looked by  the 
"Society,"  which 
thenc  ef orth  be- 
came the  enemy  to 
be  shunned  until 
growth  and  dirt 
and  the  hardships 
of  the  street,  that 
make  old  early,  of- 
fer some  hope  of 
successfully  float- 
ing the  lie  that 
they  are  "sixteen." 
A  drunken  father 
explains  the  mat- 
ter in  other  cases, 
as  in  that  of  John 


THE  STREET  ARAB. 


201 


"  "We  wnz  six,"  said  an  urchin  of  twelve  or  thirteen  I 
came  across  in  the  Xewsboys'  Lodging  House,  "  and  we 
ain't  got  no  father.  Some  on  us  had  to  go."  And  so  he 
went,  to  make  a  living  by  blacking  boots.  The  going  is 
easy  enough.  There  is  very  little  to  hold  the  boy  who 
has  never  known  anything  but  a  home  in  a  tenement. 
Very  soon  the  wild  life  in  the  streets  holds  him  fast,  and 
thenceforward  by  his  own  effort  there  is  no  escape.  Left 
alone  to  himself,  he  soon  enough  finds  a  place  in  the  police 
books,  and  there  would  be  no  other  answer  to  the  second 
question  :  "  what  becomes  of  the  boy  ?  "  than  that  given 
by  the  criminal  courts  every  day  in  the  week. 

But  he  is  not  left  alone.  Society  in  our  day  has  no  such 
suicidal  intention.  Right  here,  at  the  parting  of  the  ways, 
it  has  thrown  up  the  strongest  of  all  its  defences  for  itself 
and  for  the  boy.  "What  the  Society  for  the  Prevention 
of  Cruelty  to  Children  is  to  the  baby- waif,  the  Children's 
Aid  Society  is  to  the  homeless  boy  at  this  real  turning- 
point  in  his  career.  The  good  it  has  done  cannot  easily 
be  over-estimated.  Its  lodging-houses,  its  schools  and  its 
homes  block  every  avenue  of  escape  with  their  offer  of 
shelter  upon  terms  which  the  boy  soon  accepts,  as  on  the 
whole  cheap  and  fair.  In  the  great  Duane  Street  lodging- 
house  for  newsboys,  they  are  succinctly  stated  in  a  "  no- 
tice "  over  the  door  that  reads  thus  :  "  Boys  who  swear  and 
chew  tobacco  cannot  sleep  here."  There  is  another  un- 
written condition,  viz.:  that  the  boy  shall  be  really  without 
a  home  ;  but  upon  this  the  managers  wisely  do  not  insist 
too  obstinately,  accepting  without  too  close  inquiry  his 
account  of  himself  where  that  seems  advisable,  well 
knowing  that  many  a  home  that  sends  forth  such  lads  far 
less  deserves  the  name  than  the  one  they  are  able  to  give 
them. 


202 


HOW  THE  OTIIEli  HALF  LIVES. 


With  these  simple  preliminaries  the  outcast  boy  may 
enter.  Rags  do  not  count ;  to  ignorance  the  door  is  only 
opened  wider.  Dirt  does  not  survive  long,  once  within 
the  walls  of  the  lodging-house.    It  is  the  settled  belief  of 

the  men  who 
conduct  them 

jU5  '  ,  that  soap  and 

water  are  as 
powerful  moral 
agents  in  their 
particular  field 
as  preachi  n  g , 
and  they  have 
experience  to 
back  them. 


The  boy 
may  come  , 
and  go  as  he 
pleases,  so 
long  as  he  4 
behaves 
himself.  No 
restraint  of 
any  sort  is 
put  on  his  in- 
dependence. 

He  is  as  freo  as  any  other  guest  at  a  hotel,  and,  like 
him,  he  is  expected  to  pay  for  what  he  gets.  How 
wisely  the  men  planned  who  laid  the  foundation  of  this 
great  rescue  work  and  yet  carry  it  on,  is  shown  by  no  sin- 


STREET  ARABS  IN  SLEEPING  QUARTERS. 


THE  STREET  ARAB. 


203 


gle  feature  of  it  better  than  by  this.  Ko  pauper  was  ever 
bred  within  these  houses.  Xothing  would  have  been 
easier  with  such  material,  or  more  fatal.  But  charily  of 
the  kind  that  pauperizes  is  furthest  from  their  scheme. 
Self-help  is  its  very  key-note,  and  it  strikes  a  response  in 
the  boy's  sturdiest  trait  that  raises  him  at  once  to  a  level 
with  the  effort  made  in  his  behalf.  Recognized  as  an  in- 
dependent trader,  capable  of  and  bound  to  take  care  of 
himself,  he  is  in  a  position  to  ask  trust  if  trade  has  gone 
against  him  and  he  cannot  pay  cash  for  his  "  grub  "  and 
his  bed,  and  to  get  it  without  question.  He  can  even 
have  the  loan  of  the  small  capital  required  to  start  him  in 
business  with  a  boot-black's  kit,  or  an  armful  of  papers,  if 
he  is  known  or  vouched  for ;  but  every  cent  is  charged  to 
him  as  carefully  as  though  the  transaction  involved  as 
many  hundreds  of  dollars,  and  he  is  expected  to  pay  back 
the  money  as  soon  as  he  has  made  enough  to  keep  him 
going  without  it.  lie  very  rarely  betrays  the  trust  re- 
posed in  him.  Quite  on  the  contrary,  around  this  sound 
core  of  self-help,  thus  encouraged,  habits  of  thrift  and 
ambitious  industry  are  seen  to  grow  up  in  a  majority  of 
instances.  The  boy  is  "growing"  a  character,  and  he 
goes  out  to  the  man's  work  in  life  with  that  which  for  him 
is  better  than  if  he  had  found  a  fortune. 

Six  cents  for  his  bed,  six  for  his  breakfast  of  bread  and 
coffee,  and  six  for  his  supper  of  pork  and  beans,  as  much 
as  he  can  eat,  are  the  rates  of  the  boys'  "  hotel  "  for  those 
who  bunk  together  in  the  great  dormitories  that  some- 
times hold  more  than  a  hundred  berths,  two  tiers  high, 
made  of  iron,  clean  and  neat.  For  the  "  upper  ten,"  the 
young  financiers  who  early  take  the  lead  among  their  fel- 
lows, hire  them  to  work  for  wages  and  add  a  share  of 
their  profits  to  their  own,  and  for  the  lads  who  are  learn- 


204 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


ing  a  trade  and  getting  paid  by  the  week,  there  are  ten- 
cent  beds  with  a  locker  and  with  curtains  hung  about. 
Night  schools  and  Sunday  night  meetings  are  held  in  the 
building  and  are  always  well  attended,  in  winter  especi- 
ally, when  the  lodging-houses  are  crowded.  In  summer 
the  tow-path  and  the  country  attract  their  share  of  the 
bigger  boys.  The  "  Sunday-school  racket  "  has  ceased  to 
have  terror  for  them.  They  follow  the  proceedings  with 
the  liveliest  interest,  quick  to  detect  cant  of  any  sort, 
should  any  stray  in.  Xo  one  has  any  just  conception  of 
what  congregational  singing  is  until  he  has  witnessed  a 
roomful  of  these  boys  roll  up  their  sleeves  and  start  in 
on  "  I  am  a  lily  of  the  valley."  The  swinging  trapeze  in 
the  gymnasium  on  the  top  floor  is  scarcely  more  popular 
with  the  boys  than  this  tremendously  vocal  worship.  The 
Street  Arab  puts  his  whole  little  soul  into  what  interests 
him  for  the  moment,  whether  it  be  pulverizing  a  rival 
who  has  done  a  mean  trick  to  a  smaller  boy,  or  attending 
at  the  "gospel  shop"  on  Sundays.  This  characteristic 
made  necessary  some  extra  supervision  when  recently 
the  lads  in  the  Duane  Street  Lodging  House  "chipped 
in  "  and  bought  a  set  of  boxing  gloves.  The  trapeze 
suffered  a  temporary  eclipse  until  this  new  toy  had  been 
tested  to  the  extent  of  several  miniature  black  eyes 
upon  which  soap  had  no  effect,  and  sundry  little  scores 
had  been  settled  that  evened  things  up,  as  it  were,  for  a 
fresh  start. 

I  tried  one  night,  not  with  the  best  of  success  I  con- 
fess, to  photograph  the  boys  in  their  wash-room,  while 
they  were  cleanmg  up  for  supper.  They  were  quite  tur- 
bulent, to  the  disgust  of  one  of  their  number  who  assumed, 
unasked,  the  office  of  general  manager  of  the  show,  and 
expressed  his  mortification  to  me  in  very  polite  language. 


206 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALE  LIVES. 


"  If  they  would  only  behave,  sir  !  "  lie  complained,  "you 
could  make  a  good  picture." 

"  Yes,"  I  said,  "  but  it  isn't  in  them,  I  suppose." 

"  No,  b'gosh  !  "  said  he,  lapsing  suddenly  from  grace 
under  the  provocation,  "  them  kids  ain't  got  no  sense, 
nohow  ! " 

The  Society  maintains  five  of  these  boys'  lodging  houses, 
and  one  for  girls,  in  the  city.  The  Duane  Street  Lodging 
House  alone  has  sheltered  since  its  foundation  in  1855 
nearly  a  quarter  of  a  million  different  boys,  at  a  total  ex- 
pense of  a  good  deal  less  than  half  a  million  dollars.  Of 
this  amount,  up  to  the  beginning  of  the  present  year,  the 
boys  and  the  earnings  of  the  house  had  contributed  no  less 
than  $172,776.38.  In  all  of  the  lodging-houses  together, 
12,153  boys  and  girls  were  sheltered  and  taught  last  year. 
The  boys  saved  up  no  inconsiderable  amount  of  money  in 
the  savings  banks  provided  for  them  in  the  houses,  a  sim- 
ple system  of  lock-boxes  that  are  emptied  for  their  benefit 
once  a  month.  Besides  these,  the  Society  has  established 
and  operates  in  the  tenement  districts  twenty-one  indus- 
trial schools,  co-ordinate  with  the  public  schools  in  author- 
ity, for  the  children  of  the  poor  who  cannot  find  room 
in  the  city's  school-houses,  or  are  too  ragged  to  go  there ; 
two  free  roading-rooms,  a  dressmaking  and  typewriting 
school  and  a  laundry  for  the  instruction  of  girls  ;  a  sick- 
children's  mission  in  the  city  and  two  on  the  sea-shore, 
where  poor  mothers  may  take  their  babies  ;  a-  cottage  by 
the  sea  for  crippled  girls,  and  a  brush  factory  for  crippled 
boys  in  Forty-fourth  Street.  The  Italian  school  in  Leonard 
Street,  alone,  had  an  average  attendance  of  over  six  hun- 
dred pupils  last  year.  The  daily  average  attendance  at  all 
of  them  was  4,105,  while  11,331  children  were  registered 
and  taught.    When  the  fact  that  there  were  among  these 


THE  STREET  ARAB. 


207 


1,132  children  of  drunken  parents,  and  416  that  had  been 
found  begging  in  the  street,  is  contrasted  with  the  show- 
ing of  $1,337.21  deposited  in  the  school  savings  banks  by 
1,745  pupils,  something  like  an  adequate  idea  is  gained  of 
the  scope  of  the  Society's  work  in  the  city. 

A  large  share  of  it,  in  a  sense  the  largest,  certainly  that 
productive  of  the  happiest  results,  lies  outside  of  the  city, 
however.  From  the  lodging-houses  and  the  schools  are 
drawn  the  battalions  of  young  emigrants  that  go  every 
year  to  homes  in  the  Far  West,  to  grow  up  self-supporting 
men  and  women  safe  from  the  temptations  and  the  vice 
of  the  city.  Their  number  runs  far  up  in  the  thousands. 
The  Society  never  loses  sight  of  them.  The  records  show 
that  the  great  mass,  with  this  start  given  them,  become 
useful  citizens,  an  honor  to  the  communities  in  which 
their  lot  is  cast.  Not  a  few  achieve  place  and  prominence 
in  their  new  surroundings.  Rarely  bad  reports  come  of 
them.  Occasionally  one  comes  back,  lured  by  homesick- 
ness even  for  the  slums;  but  the  briefest  stay  generally 
cures  the  disease  for  good.  I  helped  once  to  see  a  party 
off  for  Michigan,  the  last  sent  out  by  that  great  friend  of 
the  homeless  children,  Mrs.  Astor,  before  she  died.  In 
the  party  was  a  boy  who  had  been  an  "Insider"  at  the 
Five  Points  House  of  Industry,  and  brought  along  as  his 
only  baggage  a  padlocked  and  iron-bound  box  that  con- 
tained all  his  wealth,  two  little  white  mice  of  the  friend- 
liest disposition.  They  were  going  with  him  out  to  live 
on  the  fat  of  the  land  in  the  fertile  West,  where  they 
would  never  be  wanting  for  a  crust.  Alas  !  for  the  best- 
laid  plans  of  mice  and  men.  The  Western  diet  did  not 
agree  with  either.  I  saw  their  owner  some  months  later 
in  the  old  home  at  the  Five  Points.  He  had  come  back, 
walking  part  of  the  way,  and  was  now  pleading  to  be  sent 


208 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALE  LIVES. 


out  once  more.  He  had  at  last  had  enough  of  the  city. 
His  face  fell  when  I  asked  him  about  the  mice.  It  was 
a  sad  story,  indeed.  "  They  had  so  much  corn  to  eat,"  he 
said,  "  and  they  couldn't  stand  it.  They  burned  all  up 
inside,  and  then  they  busted." 

Mrs.  Astor  set  an  example  during  her  noble  and  useful 
life  in  gathering  every  year  a  company  of  homeless  boys 
from  the  streets  and  sending  them  to  good  homes,  with 
decent  clothes  on  their  backs — she  had  sent  out  no  less 
than  thirteen  hundred  when  she  died,  and  left  funds  to 
carry  on  her  work — that  has  been  followed  by  many  who, 
like  her,  had  the  means  and  the  heart  for  such  a  labor  of 
love.  Most  of  the  lodging-houses  and  school-buildings  of 
the  society  were  built  by  some  one  rich  man  or  woman 
who  paid  all  the  bills,  and  often  objected  to  have  even  the 
name  of  the  giver  made  known  to  the  world.  It  is  one  of 
the  pleasant  experiences  of  life  that  give  one  hope  and 
courage  in  the  midst  of  all  this  misery  to  find  names,  that 
stand  to  the  unthinking  mass  only  for  money-getting  and 
grasping,  associated  with  such  unheralded  benefactions 
that  carry  their  blessings  down  to  generations  yet  unborn. 
It  is  not  so  lung  since  I  found  the  carriage  of  a  woman, 
whose  name  is  synonymous  with  millions,  standing  in 
front  of  the  boys'  lodging-house  in  Thirty-fifth  Street. 
Its  owner  was  at  that  moment  busy  with  a  surgeon  mak- 
ing a  census  of  the  crippled  lads  in  the  brush-shop,  the 
most  miserable  of  all  the  Society's  charges,  as  a  prelim- 
inary to  fitting  them  out  with  artificial  limbs. 

Farther  uptown  than  any  reared  by  the  Children's  Aid 
Society,  in  Sixty-seventh  Street,  stands  a  lodging-house 
intended  for  boys  of  a  somewhat  larger  growth  than  most 
of  those  whom  the  Society  shelters.  Unlike  the  others, 
too,  it  was  built  by  the  actual  labor  of  the  young  men  it 


THE  STEEET  ARAB. 


209 


was  designed  to  benefit.  In  the  day  when  more  of  the 
boys  from  our  streets  shall  find  their  way  to  it  and  to  the 
New  York  Trade  Schools,  of  which  it  is  a  kind  of  home 
annex,  we  shall  be  in  a  fair  way  of  solving  in  the  most 
natural  of  all  ways  the  question  what  to  do  with  this  boy, 
in  spite  of  the  ignorant  opposition  of  the  men  whose  ty- 
rannical policy  is  now  to  blame  for  the  showing  that,  out 
of  twenty-three  millions  of  dollars  paid  annually  to  me- 
chanics in  the  building  trades  in  this  city,  less  than  six 
millions  go  to  the  workman  born  in  Xew  York,  while  his 
boy  roams  the  streets  with  every  chance  of  growing  up  a 
vagabond  and  next  to  none  of  becoming  an  honest  artisan. 
Colonel  Auchmuty  is  a  practical  philanthropist  to  whom 
the  growing  youth  of  Xew  York  will  one  day  owe  a  debt 
of  gratitude  not  easily  paid.  The  progress  of  the  system 
of  trade  schools  established  by  him,  at  which  a  young  man 
may  acquire  the  theory  as  well  as  the  practice  of  a  trade 
in  a  few  months  at  a  merely  nominal  outlay,  has  not  been 
nearly  as  rapid  as  was  to  be  desired,  though  the  fact  that 
other  cities  are  copying  the  model,  with  their  master  me- 
chanics as  the  prime  movers  in  the  enterprise,  testifies  to 
its  excellence.  But  it  has  at  last  taken  a  real  start,  and 
with  union  men  and  even  the  officers  of  unions  now  send- 
ing their  sons  to  the  trade  schools  to  be  taught,*  one 
may  perhaps  be  permitted  to  hope  that  an  era  of  better 
sense  is  dawning  that  shall  witness  a  rescue  work  upon 
lines  which,  when  the  leaven  has  fairly  had  time  to  work, 
will  put  an  end  to  the  existence  of  the  Xew  York  Street 
Arab,  of  the  native  breed  at  least. 

*  Colonel  Auclirauty's  own  statement. 

14 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE   REIGN   OF  RUM. 

WHERE  God  builds  a  church  the  devil  builds  next 
door — a  saloon,  is  an  old  saying  that  has  lost  its 
point  in  Isew  York.  Either  the  devil  was  on  the  ground 
first,  or  he  has  been  doing  a  good  deal  more  in  the  way  of 
building.  I  tried  once  to  find  out  how  the  account  stood, 
and  counted  to  111  Protestant  churches,  chapels,  and 
places  of  worship  of  every  kind  below  Fourteenth  Street, 
4,065  saloons.  The  worst  half  of  the  tenement  population 
lives  down  there,  and  it  has  to  this  day  the  worst  half  of 
the  saloons.  Uptown  the  account  stands  a  little  better, 
but  there  are  easily  ten  saloons  to  every  church  to-day. 
I  am  afraid,  too,  that  the  congregations  are  larger  by  a 
good  deal ;  certainly  the  attendance  is  steadier  and  the 
contributions  more  liberal  the  week  round,  Sunday  in- 
cluded. Turn  and  twist  it  as  we  may,  over  against  every 
bulwark  for  decency  and  morality  which  society  erects,  the 
saloon  projects  its  colossal  shadow,  omen  of  evil  wherever 
it  falls  into  the  lives  of  the  poor. 

Xo where  is  its  mark  so  broad  or  so  black.  To  their 
misery  it  sticketh  closer  than  a  brother,  persuading  them 
that  within  its  doors  only  is  refuge,  relief.  It  has  the 
best  of  the  argument,  too,  for  it  is  true,  worse  pity,  that 
in  many  a  tenement-house  block  the  saloon  is  the  one 
bright  and  cheery  and  humanly  decent  spot  to  be  found. 


THE  REIGN  OF  RUM. 


211 


It  is  a  sorry  admission  to  make,  that  to  bring  the  rest  of 
the  neighborhood  up  to  the  level  of  the  saloon  would  be 
one  way  of  squelching  it ;  but  it  is  so.  Wherever  the 
tenements  thicken,  it  multiplies.  Upon  the  direst  poverty 
of  their  crowds  it  grows  fat  and  prosperous,  levying  upon  it 
a  tax  heavi  ^than  all  the  rest  of  its  grievous  burdens  com- 
bined. It  is  not  yet  two  years  since  the  Excise  Board 
made  the  rule  that  no  three  corners  of  any  street-crossing, 
not  already  so  occupied,  should  thenceforward  be  licensed 
for  rum-selling.  And  the  tardy  prohibition  was  intended 
for  the  tenement  districts.  Nowhere  else  is  there  need  of 
it.  One  may  walk  many  miles  through  the  homes  of  the 
poor  searching  vainly  for  an  open  reading-room,  a  cheer- 
ful coffee-house,  a  decent  club  that  is  not  a  cloak  for  the 
traffic  in  rum.  The  dramshop  yawns  at  every  step,  the 
poor  man's  club,  his  forum  and  his  haven  of  rest  when 
weary  and  disgusted  with  the  crowding,  the  quarrelling, 
and  the  wretchedness  at  home.  With  the  poison  dealt 
out  there  he  takes  his  politics,  in  quality  not  far  apart. 
As  the  source,  so  the  stream.  The  rumshop  turns  the 
political  crank  in  New  York.  The  natural  yield  is  rum 
politics.  Of  what  that  means,  successive  Boards  of  Alder- 
men, composed  in  a  measure,  if  not  of  a  majority,  of  dive- 
keepers,  have  given  New  York  a  taste.  The  disgrace  of 
the  infamous  "  Boodle  Board  "  will  be  remembered  until 
some  corruption  even  fouler  crops  out  and  throws  it  into 
the  shade. 

What  relation  the  saloon  bears  to  the  crowds,  let  me  il- 
lustrate by  a  comparison.  Below  Fourteenth  Street  were, 
when  the  Health  Department  took  its  first  accurate  census 
of  the  tenements  a  year  and  a  half  ago,  13,220  of  the  32,- 
390  buildings  classed  as  such  in  the  whole  city.  Of  the 
eleven  hundred  thousand  tenants,  not  quite  half  a  million, 


212 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


embracing  a  host  of  more  than  sixty-three  thousand  chil- 
dren under  five  years  of  age,  lived  below  that  line.  Be- 
low it,  also,  were  234  of  the  cheap  lodging-houses  ac- 
counted for  by  the  police  last  year,  with  a  total  of  four 
millions  and  a  half  of  lodgers  for  the  twelvemonth,  59  of 
the  city's  110  pawnshops,  and  4,065  of  its  7;884  saloons. 
The  four  most  densely  peopled  precincts,  the  Fourth, 
Sixth,  Tenth,  and  Eleventh,  supported  together  in  round 
numbers  twelve  hundred  saloons,  and  their  returns  showed 
twenty-seven  per  cent,  of  the  whole  number  of  arrests  for 
the  year.  The  Eleventh  Precinct,  that  has  the  greatest 
and  the  poorest  crowds  of  all — it  is  the  Tenth  Ward — and 
harbored  one-third  of  the  army  of  homeless  lodgers  and 
fourteen  per  cent,  of  all  the  prisoners  of  the  year,  kept  485 
saloons  going  in  1889.  It  is  not  on  record  that  one  of 
them  all  failed  for  want  of  support.  A  number  of  them, 
on  the  contrary,  had  brought  their  owners  wealth  and 
prominence.  From  their  bars  these  eminent  citizens 
stepped  proudly  into  the  councils  of  the  city  and  the  State. 
The  very  floor  of  one  of  the  bar-rooms,  in  a  neighborhood 
that  lately  resounded  with  the  cry  for  bread  of  starving 
workmen,  is  paved  with  silver  dollars ! 

East  Side  poverty  is  not  alone  in  thus  rewarding  the  ty- 
rants that  sweeten  its  cup  of  bitterness  with  their  treach- 
erous poison.  The  Fourth  Ward  points  with  pride  to  the 
honorable  record  of  the  conductors  of  its  "  Tub  of  Blood," 
and  a  dozen  bar-rooms  with  less  startling  titles ;  the  West 
Side  to  the  wealth  and  "  social "  standing  of  the  owners  of 
such  resorts  as  the  "  Witches'  Broth  "  and  the  "  Plug  Hat  " 
in  the  region  of  Hell's  Kitchen  three-cent  whiskey,  names 
ominous  of  the  concoctions  brewed  there  and  of  their  fa- 
tally generous  measure.  Another  ward,  that  boasts  some 
of  the  best  residences  and  the  bluest  blood  on  Manhattan 


THE  REIGN  OF  RUM. 


213 


Island,  honors  with  political  leadership  in  the  ruling  party 
the  proprietor  of  one  of  the  most  disreputable  Black-and- 
Tan  dives  and  dancing-hells  to  be  found  anywhere. 
Criminals  and  policemen  alike  do  him  homage.  The  list 
might  be  strung  out  to  make  texts  for  sermons  with 
a  stronger  home  flavor  than  many  that  are  preached  in 
our  pulpits  on  Sunday.  But  I  have  not  set  out  to  write 
the  political  history  of  New  York.  Besides,  the  list  would 
not  be  complete.  Secret  dives  are  skulking  in  the  slums 
and  out  of  them,  that  are  not  labelled  respectable  by  a 
Board  of  Excise  and  support  no  "  family  entrance."  Their 
business,  like  that  of  the  stale-beer  dives,  is  clone  through 
a  side-door  the  week  through.  ~No  one  knows  the  number 
of  unlicensed  saloons  in  the  city.  Those  who  have  made 
the  matter  a  study  estimate  it  at  a  thousand,  more  or  less. 
The  police  make  occasional  schedules  of  a  few  and  report 
them  to  headquarters.  Perhaps  there  is  a  farce  in  the 
police  court,  and  there  the  matter  ends.  Bum  and  "  in- 
fluence "are  synonymous  terms.  The  interests  of  the  one 
rarely  suffer  for  the  want  of  attention  from  the  other. 

With  the  exception  of  these  free  lances  that  treat  the 
law  openly  with  contempt,  the  saloons  all  hang  out  a  sign 
announcing  in  fat  type  that  no  beer  or  liquor  is  sold  to 
children.  In  the  down-town  "  morgues  "  that  make  the 
lowest  degradation  of  tramp-humanity  pan  out  a  paying 
interest,  as  in  the  "  reputable  resorts  "  uptown  where  In- 
spector Byrnes's  men  spot  their  worthier  quarry  elbowing 
citizens  whom  the  idea  of  associating  with  a  burglar  would 
give  a  shock  they  wrould  not  get  over  for  a  week,  this  sign 
is  seen  conspicuously  displayed.  Though  apparently  it 
means  submission  to  a  beneficent  law,  in  reality  the  sign 
is  a  heartless,  cruel  joke.  I  doubt  if  one  child  in  a  thou- 
sand, who  brings  his  growler  to  be  filled  at  the  average 


THE  REIGN  OF  RUM. 


215 


New  York  bar,  is  sent  away  empty-handed,  if  able  to  pay 
for  what  he  wants.  I  once  followed  a  little  boy,  who 
shivered  in  bare  feet  on  a  cold  November  night  so  that 
he  seemed  in  danger  of  smashing  his  pitcher  on  the  icy 
pavement,  into  a  Mulberry  Street  saloon  where  just  such  a 
sign  hung  on  the  wall,  and  forbade  the  barkeeper  to  serve 
the  boy.  The  man  was  as  astonished  at  my  interference 
as  if  I  had  told  him  to  shut  up  his  shop  and  go  home, 
which  in  fact  I  might  have  done  with  as  good  a  right,  for 
it  was  after  1  a.m.,  the  legal  closing  hour.  He  was  migh- 
ty indignant  too,  and  told  me  roughly  to  go  away  and 
mind  my  business,  while  he  filled  the  pitcher.  The  law 
prohibiting  the  selling  of  beer  to  minors  is  about  as  much 
respected  in  the  tenement-house  districts  as  the  ordinance 
against  swearing.  Newspaper  readers  will  recall  the 
story,  told  little  more  than  a  year  ago,  of  a  boy  who  after 
carrying  beer  a  whole  day  for  a  shopful  of  men  over  on 
the  East  Side,  where  his  father  worked,  crept  into  the  cel- 
lar to  sleep  off  the  effects  of  his  own  share  in  the  rioting. 
It  was  Saturday  evening.  Sunday  his  parents  sought  him 
high  and  low  ;  but  it  was  not  until  Monday  morning, 
when  the  shop  was  opened,  that  he  was  found,  killed  and 
half-eaten  by  the  rats  that  overran  the  place. 

All  the  evil  the  saloon  does  in  breeding  poverty  and 
in  corrupting  politics ;  all  the  suffering  it  brings  into  the 
lives  of  its  thousands  of  innocent  victims^  the  wives  and 
children  of  drunkards  it  sends  forth  to  curse  the  commu- 
nity ;  its  fostering  of  crime  and  its  shielding  of  criminals — 
it  is  all  as  nothing  to  this,  its  worst  offence.  In  its  affinity 
for  the  thief  there  is  at  least  this  compensation  that,  as  it 
makes,  it  also  unmakes  him.  It  starts  him  on  his  career 
only  to  trip  him  up  and  betray  him  into  the  hands  of  the 
law,  when  the  rum  he  exchanged  for  his  honesty  has  stolen 


216 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


his  brains  as  well.  For  the  corruption  of  the  child  there 
is  no  restitution.  None  is  possible.  It  saps  the  very 
vitals  of  society  ;  undermines  its  strongest  defences,  and 
delivers  them  over  to  the  enemy.  Fostered  and  filled  by 
the  saloon,  the  "  growler  "  looms  up  in  the  New  York 
street  boy's  life,  baffling  the  most  persistent  efforts  to  re- 
claim him.  There  is  no  escape  from  it ;  no  hope  for  the 
boy,  once  its  blighting  grip  is  upon  him.  Thenceforward 
the  logic  of  the  slums,  that  the  world  which  gave  him  pov- 
erty and  ignorance  for  his  portion  "  owes  him  a  living,"  is 
his  creed,  and  the  career  of  the  "  tough  "  lies  open  before 
him,  a  beaten  track  to  be  blindly  followed  to  a  bad  end  in 
the  wake  of  the  growler. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 


THE  HARVEST  OF  TARES. 

rpiIE  "  growler  "  stood  at  the  cradle  of  the  tough.  It 
bosses  him  through  his  boyhood  apprenticeship  in  the 
"gang,"  and  leaves  him,  for  a  time  only,  at  the  door  of 
the  jail  that  receives  him  to  finish  his  training  and  turn 
him  loose  upon  the  world  a  thief,  to  collect  by  stealth  or 
by  force  the  living  his  philosophy  tells  him  that  it  owes 
him,  and  will  not  voluntarily  surrender  without  an  equiva- 
lent in  the  work  which  he  hates.  From  the  moment  he, 
almost  a  baby,  for  the  first  time  carries  the  growler  for 
beer,  he  is  never  out  of  its  reach,  and  the  two  soon  form 
a  partnership  that  lasts  through  life.  It  has  at  least  the 
merit,  such  as  it  is,  of  being  loyal.  The  saloon  is  the  only 
thing  that  takes  kindly  to  the  lad.  Honest  play  is  inter- 
dicted in  the  streets.  The  policeman  arrests  the  ball-tossers, 
and  there  is  no  room  in  the  back-yard.  In  one  of  these, 
between  two  enormous  tenements  that  swarmed  with  chil- 
dren, I  read  this  ominous  notice  :  "  All  boys  caught  in 
this  yard  will  be  delt  with  accorden  to  IdwP 

Along  the  water-fronts,  in  the  holes  of  the  dock-rats, 
and  on  the  avenues,  the  young  tough  finds  plenty  of  kin- 
dred spirits.  Every  corner  has  its  gang,  not  always  on  the 
best  of  terms  with  the  rivals  in  the  next  block,  but  all 
with  a  common  programme :  defiance  of  law  and  order, 
and  with  a  common  ambition  :  to  get  "  pinched,"  i.e.,  ar- 
rested, so  as  to  pose  as  heroes  before  their  fellows.  A 


218 


HOW  THE  OTTIEK  HALF  LIVES. 


successful  raid  on  the  grocer's  till  is  a  good  mark,  "  doing 
up  "  a  policeman  cause  for  promotion.  The  gang  is  an  in- 
stitution in  Xew  York.  The  police  deny  its  existence 
while  nursing  the  bruises  received  in  nightly  battles  with 
it  that  tax  their  utmost  resources.  The  newspapers  chron- 
icle its  doings  daily,  with  a  sensational  minuteness  of  de- 
tail that  does  its  share  toward  keeping  up  its  evil  tradi- 
tions and  inflaming  the  ambition  of  its  members  to  be  as 
bad  as  the  worst.  The  gang  is  the  ripe  fruit  of  tenement- 
house  growth.  It  was  born  there,  endowed  with  a  herit- 
age of  instinctive  hostility  to  restraint  by  a  generation 
that  sacrificed  home  to  freedom,  or  left  its  country  for  its 
country's  good.  The  tenement  received  and  nursed  the 
seed.  The  intensity  of  the  American  temper  stood  spon- 
sor to  the  murderer  in  what  would  have  been  the  common 
"  bruiser "  of  a  more  phlegmatic  clime.  Xew  York's 
tough  represents  the  essence  of  reaction  against  the  old 
and  the  new  oppression,  nursed  in  the  rank  soil  of  its 
slums.  Its  gangs  are  made  up  of  the  American-born  sons 
of  English,  Irish,  and  German  parents.  They  reflect  ex- 
actly the  conditions  of  the  tenements  from  which  they 
sprang.  Murder  is  as  congenial  to  Cherry  Street  or  to 
Battle  Row,  as  quiet  and  order  to  Murray  Hill.  The  "as- 
similation" of  Europe's  oppressed  hordes,  upon  wThich  our 
Fourth  of  July  orators  are  fond  of  dwelling,  is  perfect. 
The  product  is  our  own. 

Such  is  the  genesis  of  Xew  York's  gangs.  Their  his- 
tory is  not  so  easily  written.  It  would  embrace  the  larg- 
est share  of  our  city's  criminal  history  for  two  genera- 
tions back,  every  page  of  it  dyed  red  with  blood.  The 
guillotine  Paris  set  up  a  century  ago  to  avenge  its  wrongs 
was  not  more  relentless,  or  less  discriminating,  than  this 
Xemesis  of  Xew  York.    The  difference  is  of  intent. 


THE  HARVEST  OF  TARES. 


219 


Murder  with  that  was  the  serious  purpose ;  with  ours  it 
is  the  careless  incident,  the  wanton  brutality  of  the  mo- 
ment. Bravado  and  robbery  are  the  real  purposes  of  the 
gangs ;  the  former  prompts  the  attack  upon  the  police- 
man, the  latter  that  upon  the  citizen.  Within  a  single 
week  last  spring,  the  newspapers  recorded  six  murderous 
assaults  on  unoffending  people,  committed  by  young  high- 
waymen in  the  public  streets.  How  many  more  were 
suppressed  by  the  police,  who  always  do  their  utmost  to 
hush  up  such  outrages  "  in  the  interests  of  justice,"  I  shall 
not  say.  There  has  been  no  lack  of  such  occurrences  since, 
as  the  records  of  the  criminal  courts  show.  In  fact,  the 
past  summer  has  seen,  after  a  period  of  comparative 
quiescence  of  the  gangs,  a  reawakening  to  renewed  tur- 
bulence of  the  East  Side  tribes,  and  over  and  over  again 
the  reserve  forces  of  a  precinct  have  been  called  out  to 
club  them  into  submission.  It  is  a  peculiarity  of  the 
gangs  that  they  usually  break  out  in  spots,  as  it  were. 
When  the  West  Side  is  in  a  state  of  eruption,  the  East  Side 
gangs  "  lie  low,"  and  when  the  toughs  along  the  North 
River  are  pursing  broken  heads  at  home,  or  their  revenge 
in  Sing  Sing,  fresh  trouble  breaks  out  in  the  tenements 
east  of  Third  Avenue.  This  result  is  brought  about  by  the 
very  efforts  made  by  the  police  to  put  down  the  gangs. 
In  spite  of  local  feuds,  there  is  between  them  a  species  of 
ruffianly  Freemasonry  that  readily  admits  to  full  fellow- 
ship a  hunted  rival  in  the  face  of  the  common  enemy. 
The  gangs  belt  the  city  like  a  huge  chain  from  the  Bat- 
tery to  Harlem — the  collective  name  of  the  "  chain  gang" 
has  been  given  to  their  scattered  groups  in  the  belief  that 
a  much  closer  connection  exists  between  them  than  com- 
monly supposed — and  the  ruffian  for  whom  the  East  Side 
has  became  too  hot,  has  only  to  step  across  town  and 


220  HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


change  his  name,  a  matter  usually  much  easier  for  him 
than  to  change  his  shirt,  to  find  a  sanctuary  in  which  to 
plot  fresh  outrages.  The  more  notorious  he  is,  the  warmer 
the  welcome,  and  if  he  has  "  done  "  his  man  he  is  by 
common  consent  accorded  the  leadership  in  his  new  field. 

From  all  this  it  might  be  inferred  that  the  Kew  York 
tough  is  a  very  fierce  individual,  of  indomitable  courage 
and  naturally  as  blood-thirsty  as  a  tiger.  On  the  contrary 
he  is  an  arrant  coward.  His  instincts  of  ferocity  are 
those  of  the  wolf  rather  than  the  tiger.  It  is  only  when 
he  hunts  with  the  pack  that  he  is  dangerous.  Then  his 
inordinate  vanity  makes  him  forget  all  fear  or  caution  in 
the  desire  to  distinguish  himself  before  his  fellows,  a 
result  of  his  swallowing  all  the  flash  literature  and  penny- 
dreadfuls  he  can  beg,  borrow,  or  steal — and  there  is  never 
any  lack  of  them — and  of  the  strongly  dramatic  element 
in  his  nature  that  is  nursed  by  such  a  diet  into  rank  and 
morbid  growth.  He  is  a  queer  bundle  of  contradictions 
at  all  times.  Drunk  and  foul-mouthed,  ready  to  cut  the 
throat  of  a  defenceless  stranger  at  the  toss  of  a  cent,  fresh 
from  beating  his  decent  mother  black  and  blue  to  get  money 
for  rum,*  he  will  resent  as  an  intolerable  insult  the  imputa- 
tion that  he  is  "  no  gentleman."  Fighting  his  battles 
with  the  coward's  weapons,  the  brass-knuckles  and  the 
deadly  sand-bag,  or  with  brick-bats  from  the  housetops, 

*  This  very  mother  will  implore  the  court  with  tears,  the  next  morn- 
ing, to  let  her  renegade  son  off.  A  poor  woman,  who  claimed  to  be  the 
widow  of  a  soldier,  applied  to  the  Tenement-house  Relief  Committee  of 
the  King's  Daughters  last  summer,  to  he  sent  to  some  home,  as  she  had 
neither  kith  nor  kin  to  care  for  her.  Upon  investigation  it  was  found 
that  she  had  four  big  sons,  all  toughs,  who  beat  her  regularly  and  took 
from  her  all  the  money  she  could  earn  or  beg  ;  she  was  "  a  respectable 
woman,  of  good  habits,"  the  inquiry  developed,  and  lied  only  to  shield 
her  rascally  sons. 


THE  HARVEST  OF  TARES. 


221 


he  is  still  in  all  seriousness  a  lover  of  fair  play,  and  as 
likely  as  not,  when  his  gang  has  downed  a  policeman  in  a 
battle  that  has  cost  a  dozen  broken  heads,  to  be  found  next 
saving  a  drowning  child  or  woman  at  the  peril  of  his  own 
life.  It  depends  on  the  angle  at  which  he  is  seen,  whether 
he  is  a  cowardly  ruffian,  or  a  possible  hero  with  different 
training  and  under  different  social  conditions.  Ready  wit 
he  has  at  all  times,  and  there  is  less  meanness  in  his  make- 
up than  in  that  of  the  bully  of  the  London  slums ;  but  an 
intense  love  of  show  and  applause,  that  carries  him  to  any 
length  of  bravado,  which  his  twin-brother  across  the  sea 
entirely  lacks.  I  have  a  very  vivid  recollection  of  seeing 
one  of  his  tribe,  a  robber  and  murderer  before  he  was 
nineteen,  go  to  the  gallows  unmoved,  all  fear  of  the  rope 
overcome,  as  it  seemed,  by  the  secret,  exultant  pride  of 
being  the  centre  of  a  first-class  show,  shortly  to  be  fol- 
lowed by  that  acme  of  tenement-life  bliss,  a  big  funeral, 
lie  had  his  reward.  His  name  is  to  this  day  a  talisman 
among  West  Side  ruffians,  and  is  proudly  borne  by  the 
gang  of  which,  up  till  the  night  when  he  "  knocked  out 
his  man, ".he  was  an  obscure  though  aspiring  member. 

The  crime  that  made  McGloin  famous  was  the  coward- 
ly murder  of  an  unarmed  saloonkeeper  who  came  upon 
the  gang  while  it  was  sacking  his  bar-room  at  the  dead  of 
night.  McGloin  might  easily  have  fled,  but  disdained  to 
"run  for  a  Dutchman."  His  act  was  a  fair  measure  of 
the  standard  of  heroism  set  up  by  his  class  in  its  conflicts 
with  society.  The  finish  is  worthy  of  the  start.  The  first 
long  step  in  crime  taken  by  the  half-grown  boy,  fired  with 
ambition  to  earn  a  standing  in  his  gang,  is  usually  to  rob 
a  "  lush,"  i.e.,  a  drunken  man  who  has  strayed  his  way, 
likely  enough  is  lying  asleep  in  a  hallway.  He  has  served 
an  apprenticeship  on  copper-bottom  wash-boilers  and  like 


222 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


articles  found  lying  around  loose,  and  capable  of  being 
converted  into  cash  enough  to  give  the  growler  a  trip  or 
two ;  but  his  first  venture  at  robbery  moves  him  up  into 
full  fellowship  at  once.  He  is  no  longer  a  "  kid,"  though 
his  years  may  be  few,  but  a  tough  with  the  rest.  He  may 
even  in  time — he  is  reasonably  certain  of  it — get  his  name 
in  the  papers  as  a  murderous  scoundrel,  and  have  his  cup 
of  glory  filled  to  the  brim.  I  came  once  upon  a  gang  of 
such  young  rascals  passing  the  growler  after  a  successful 
raid  of  some  sort,  down  at  the  West  Thirty-seventh  Street 
dock,  and,  having  my  camera  along,  offered  to  "take" 
them.  They  were  not  old  and  wary  enough  to  be  shy  of 
the  photographer,  whose  acquaintance  they  usually  first 
make  in  handcuffs  and  the  grip  of  a  policeman  ;  or  their 
vanity  overcame  their  caution.  It  is  entirely  in  keeping 
with  the  tough's  character  that  he  should  love  of  all 
things  to  pose  before  a  photographer,  and  the  ambition  is 
usually  the  stronger  the  more  repulsive  the  tough.  These 
wrere  of  that  sort,  and  accepted  the  offer  with  great  readi- 
ness, dragging  into  their  group  a  disreputable-looking  sheep 
that  roamed  about  with  them  (the  slaughter-houses  were 
close  at  hand)  as  one  of  the  band.  The  homeliest  ruffian 
of  the  lot,  who  insisted  on  being  taken  with  the  growler  to 
his  "  mug,"  took  the  opportunity  to  pour  what  was  left  in 
it  down  his  throat  and  this  caused  a  brief  unpleasantness, 
but  otherwise  the  performance  was  a  success.  While  I 
was  getting  the  camera  ready,  I  threw  out  a  vague  sugges- 
tion of  cigarette-pictures,  and  it  took  root  at  once.  Noth- 
ing would  do  then  but  that  I  must  take  the  boldest  spirits 
of  the  company  "  in  character."  One  of  them  tumbled  over 
against  a  shed,  as  if  asleep,  while  two  of  the  others  bent 
over  him,  searching  his  pockets  wTith  a  deftness  that  was 
highly  suggestive.    This,  they  explained  for  my  benefit, 


A  GROWLER  GANG  IN  SESSION. 


224 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


was  to  show  how  they  "  did  the  trick.*'  The  rest  of  the 
band  were  so  impressed  with  the  importance  of  this  ex- 
hibition that  they  insisted  on  crowding  into  the  picture  by 
climbing  upon  the  shed,  sitting  on  the  roof  with  their  feet 
dangling  over  the  edge,  and  disposing  themselves  in  every 
imaginable  manner  within  view,  as  thev  thought.  Lest 
any  reader  be  led  into  the  error  of  supposing  them  to  have 
been  harmless  young  fellows  enjoying  themselves  in  peace, 
let  me  say  that  within  half  an  hour  after  our  meeting, 
when  I  called  at  the  police  station  three  blocks  away,  I 
found  there  two  of  my  friends  of  the  "  Montgomery 
Guards  "  under  arrest  for  robbing  a  Jewish  pedlar  who 
had  passed  that  way  after  I  left  them,  and  trying  to  saw 
his  head  off,  as  they  put  it,  "just  for  fun.  The  sheeny 
cum  along  an'  the  saw  was  there,  an'  we  socked  it  to 
him."  The  prisoners  were  described  to  me  by  the  police 
as  Dennis,  "  the  Bum,"  and  "  Mud  "  Foley. 

It  is  not  always  that  their  little  diversions  end  as  harm- 
lessly as  did  this,  even  from  the  standpoint  of  the  Jew, 
who  was  pretty  badly  hurt.  Not  far  from  the  preserves 
of  the  Montgomery  Guards,  in  Poverty  Gap,  directly  op- 
posite the  scene  of  the  murder  to  which  I  have  referred 
in  a  note  explaining  the  picture  of  the  Cunningham  fam- 
ily (p.  169),  a  young  lad,  who  was  the  only  support  of  his 
aged  parents,  was  beaten  to  death  within  a  few  months  by 
the  "  Alley  Gang,"  for  the  same  offence  that  drew  down 
the  displeasure  of  its  neighbors  upon  the  pedlar  :  that  of 
being  at  work  trying  to  earn  an  honest  living.  I  found  a 
part  of  the  gang  asleep  the  next  morning,  before  young 
Healey's  death  was  known,  in  a  heap  of  straw  on  the  floor 
of  an  unoccupied  room  in  the  same  row  of  rear  tenements 
in  which  the  murdered  boy's  home  was.  One  of  the  ten- 
ants, who  secretly  directed  me  to  their  lair,  assuring  me 


THE  HARVEST  OF  TAEES. 


225 


that  no  worse  scoundrels  went  unhung,  ten  minutes  later 
gave  the  gang,  to  its  face,  an  official  character  for  sobriety 
and  inoffensiveness  that  very  nearly  startled  me  into  an 
unguarded  rebuke  of  his  duplicity.  I  caught  his  eye  in 
time  and  held  my  peace.  The  man  was  simply  trying  to 
protect  his  own  home,  while  giving  such  aid  as  he  safely 
could  toward  bringing  the  murderous  ruffians  to  justice. 
The  incident  shows  to  what  extent  a  neighborhood  may 
be  terrorized  by  a  determined  gang  of  these  reckless 
toughs. 

In  Poverty  Gap  there  were  still  a  few  decent  people 
left.  When  it  comes  to  Hell's  Kitchen,  or  to  its  compeers 
at  the  other  end  of  Thirty-ninth  Street  over  by  the  East 
River,  and  further  down  First  Avenue  in  "  the  Tillage," 
the  Rag  Gang  and  its  allies  have  no  need  of  fearing 
treachery  in  their  periodical  battles  with  the  police.  The 
entire  neighborhood  takes  a  hand  on  these  occasions,  the 
women  in  the  front  rank,  partly  from  sheer  love  of  the 
"  fun,"  but  chiefly  because  husbands,  brothers,  and  sweet- 
hearts are  in  the  fight  to  a  man  and  need  their  help. 
Chimney-tops  form  the  staple  of  ammunition  then,  and 
stacks  of  loose  brick  and  paving-stones,  carefully  hoarded 
in  upper  rooms  as  a  prudent  provision  against  emergen- 
cies. Regular  patrol  posts  are  established  by  the  police 
on  the  housetops  in  times  of  trouble  in  these  localities, 
but  even  then  they  do  not  escape  whole-skinned,  if,  in- 
deed, with  their  lives;  neither  does  the  gang.  The 
policeman  knows  of  but  one  cure  for  the  tough,  the  club, 
and  he  lays  it  on  without  stint  whenever  and  wherever  he 
has  the  chance,  knowing  right  well  that,  if  caught  at  a 
disadvantage,  he  will  get  his  outlay  back  wTith  interest. 
Words  are  worse  than  wasted  in  the  gang-districts.  It  is 
a  blow  at  sight,  and  the  tough  thus  accosted  never  stops 
15 


226 


B.OVT  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


to  ask  questions.  Unless  lie  is  "  wanted  "  for  some  signal 
outrage,  the  policeman  rarely  bothers  with  arresting  him. 
He  can  point  out  half  a  dozen  at  sight  against  whom  in- 
dictments are  pending  by  the  basketful,  but  whom  no  jail 
ever  held  many  hours.  They  only  serve  to  make  him 
more  reckless,  for  he  knows  that  the  political  backing  that 
has  saved  him  in  the  past  can  do  it  again.  It  is  a  commo- 
dity that  is  only  exchangeable  "  for  value  received,"  and 
it  is  not  hard  to  imagine  what  sort  of  value  is  in  demand. 
The  saloon,  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred,  stands 
behind  the  bargain. 

For  these  reasons,  as  well  as  because  he  knows  from  fre- 
quent experience  his  own  way  to  be  the  best,  the  police- 
man lets  the  gangs  alone  except  when  they  come  within 
reach  of  his  long  night-stick.  They  have  their  "club- 
rooms  "  where  they  meet,  generally  in  a  tenement,  some- 
times under  a  pier  or  a  dump,  to  carouse,  play  cards,  and 
plan  their  raids ;  their  "  fences,"  who  dispose  of  the 
stolen  property.  When  the  necessity  presents  itself  for 
a  descent  upon  the  gang  after  some  particularly  flagrant 
outrage,  the  police  have  a  task  on  hand  that  is  not  of  the 
easiest.  The  gangs,  like  foxes,  have  more  than  one  hole 
to  their  dens.  In  some  localities,  wdiere  the  interior  of  a 
block  is  filled  with  rear  tenements,  often  set  at  all  sorts  of 
odd  angles,  surprise  alone  is  practicable.  Pursuit  through 
the  winding  ways  and  passages  is  impossible.  The  young 
thieves  know  them  all  by  heart.  They  have  their  runways 
over  roofs  and  fences  which  no  one  else  could  find. 
Their  lair  is  generally  selected  with  special  reference  to 
its  possibilities  of  escape.  Once  pitched  upon,  its  occupa- 
tion by  the  gang,  with  its  ear-mark  of  nightly  symposiums, 
"  can-rackets"  in  the  slang  of  the  street,  is  the  signal  for 
a  rapid  deterioration  of  the  tenement,  if  that  is  possible. 


THE  HARVEST  OF  TARES. 


227 


Relief  is  only  to  be  had  by  ousting  the  intruders.  An 
instance  came  under  my  notice  in  which  valuable  property 
had  been  well-nigh  ruined  by  being  made  the  thorough- 
fare of  thieves  by  night  and  by  day.  They  had  chosen  it 
because  of  a  passage  that  led  through  the  block  by  way 
of  several  connecting  halls  and  yards.  The  place  came 
soon  to  be  known  as  "  Murderers  Alley."  Complaint  was 
made  to  the  Board  of  Health,  as  a  last  resort,  of  the  con- 
dition of  the  property.  The  practical  inspector  who  was 
sent  to  report  upon  it  suggested  to  the  owner  that  he 
build  a  brick-wall  in  a  place  where  it  would  shut  off  com- 
munication between  the  streets,  and  he  took  the  advice. 
WithiD  the  brief  space  of  a  few  months  the  house  changed 
character  entirely,  and  became  as  decent  as  it  had  been 
before  the  convenient  runway  was  discovered. 

This  was  in  the  Sixth  Ward,  where  the  infamous  Whyo 
Gang  until  a  few  years  ago  absorbed  the  worst  depravity 
of  the  Bend  and  what  is  left  of  the  Five  Points.  The 
gang  was  finally  broken  up  when  its  leader  was  hanged  for 
murder  after  a  life  of  uninterrupted  and  unavenged 
crimes,  the  recital  of  which  made  his  father  confessor  turn 
pale,  listening  in  the  shadow  of  the  scaffold,  though  many 
years  of  labor  as  chaplain  of  the  Tombs  had  hardened  him 
to  such  rehearsals.  The  great  Whyo  had  been  a  "  power 
in  the  ward,"  handy  at  carrying  elections  for  the  party  or 
faction  that  happened  to  stand  in  need  of  his  services  and 
was  willing  to  pay  for  them  in  money  or  in  kind.  Other 
gangs  have  sprung  up  since  with  as  high  ambition  and 
a  fair  prospect  of  outdoing  their  predecessor.  The  con- 
ditions that  bred  it  still  exist,  practically  unchanged. 
Inspector  Byrnes  is  authority  for  the  statement  that 
throughout  the  city  the  young  tough  has  more  "  ability  " 
and  "  nerve  "  than  the  thief  whose  example  he  successfully 


228  HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


emulates.  He  begins  earlier,  too.  Speaking  of  the 
increase  of  the  native  element  among  criminal  prisoners 
exhibited  in  the  census  returns  of  the  last  thirty  years,* 
the  Rev.  Fred.  II.  Wines  says,  "  their  youth  is  a  very 
striking  fact."  Had  he  confined  his  observations  to  the 
police  courts  of  New  York,  he  might  have  emphasized 
that  remark  and  found  an  explanation  of  the  discovery 


TYPICAL  TOUGHS  (FROM  THE  ROGUES'  GALLERY). 


that  "  the  ratio  of  prisoners  in  cities  is  two  and  one-quarter 
times  as  great  as  in  the  country  at  large,"  a  computation 
that  takes  no  account  of  the  reformatories  for  juvenile 
delinquents,  or  the  exhibit  would  have  been  still  more 
striking.    Of  the  82,200  persons  arrested  by  the  police  in 

*  "  The  percentage  of  foreign-born  prisoners  in  1850.  as  compared 
with  that  of  natives,  was  more  than  five  times  that  of  native  prisoners, 
now  (1880)  it  is  less  than  double." — American  Prisons  in  the  Tenth 
Census. 


THE  HARVEST  OF  TAKES. 


229 


1889,  10,505  were  under  twenty  years  old.  The  last 
report  of  the  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to 
Children  enumerates,  as  "  a  few  typical  cases,"  eighteen 
"  professional  cracksmen,"  between  nine  and  fifteen  years 
old,  who  had  been  caught  with  burglars' tools,  or  in  the  act 
of  robbery.  Four  of  them,  hardly  yet  in  long  trousers, 
had  "  held  up  "  a  wayfarer  in  the  public  street  and  robbed 
him  of  §73.  One,  aged  sixteen,  "  was  the  leader  of  a 
noted  gang  of  young  robbers  in  Forty-ninth  Street.  He 
committed  murder,  for  which  he  is  now  serving  a  term  of 
nineteen  years  in  State's  Prison."  Four  of  the  eighteen 
were  girls  and  quite  as  bad  as  the  wrorst.  In  a  few  years 
they  would  have  been  living  with  the  toughs  of  their 
choice  without  the  ceremony  of  a  marriage,  egging  them 
on  by  their  pride  in  their  lawless  achievements,  and  fight- 
ing side  by  side  with  them  in  their  encounters  with  the 
"  cops." 

The  exploits  of  the  Paradise  Park  Gang  in  the  way  of 
highway  robbery  showed  last  summer  that  the  embers  of 
the  scattered  Whyo  Gang,  upon  the  wreck  of  which  it 
grew,  were  smouldering  still.  The  hanging  of  Driscoll 
broke  up  the  Whyos  because  they  were  a  comparatively 
small  band,  and,  with  the  incomparable  master-spirit 
gone,  were  unable  to  resist  the  angry  rush  of  public  in- 
dignation that  followed  the  crowning  outrage.  This  is  the 
history  of  the  passing  away  of  famous  gangs  from  time  to 
time.  The  passing  is  more  apparent  than  real,  however. 
Some  other  daring  leader  gathers  the  scattered  elements 
about  him  soon,  and  the  war  on  society  is  resumed.  A 
bare  enumeration  of  the  names  of  the  best-known  gangs 
would  occupy  pages  of  this  book.  The  Pock  Gang,  the 
Pag  Gang,  the  Stable  Gang,  and  the  Short  Tail  Gang 
down  about  the  "Hook  "  have  all  achieved  bad  eminence, 


230 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


along  with  scores  of  others  that  have  not  paraded  so  fre- 
quently in  the  newspapers.  By  day  they  loaf  in  the  cor- 
ner-groggeries  on  their  beat,  at  night  they  plunder  the 
stores  along  the  avenues,  or  lie  in  wait  at  the  river  for  un- 
steady feet  straying  their  way.  The  man  who  is  sober 
and  minds  his  own  business  they  seldom  molest,  unless  he 
be  a  stranger  inquiring  his  way,  or  a  policeman  and  the 
gang  twenty  against  the  one.  The  tipsy  wayfarer  is  their 
chosen  victim,  and  they  seldom  have  to  look  for  him 
long.  One  has  not  far  to  go  to  the  river  from  any  point 
in  Xew  York.  The  man  who  does  not  know  where  he  is 
going  is  sure  to  reach  it  sooner  or  later.  Should  he  fool- 
ishly resist  or  make  an  outcry — dead  men  tell  no  tales. 
"  Floaters"  come  ashore  every  now  and  then  with  pockets 
turned  inside  out,  not  always  evidence  of  a  post-mortem 
inspection  by  dock-rats.  Police  patrol  the  rivers  as 
well  as  the  shore  on  constant  look-out  for  these,  but  sel- 
dom catch  up  with  them.  If  overtaken  after  a  race  dur- 
ing which  shots  are  often  exchanged  from  the  boats,  the 
thieves  have  an  easy  way  of  escaping  and  at  the  same 
time  destroying  the  evidence  against  them  ;  they  simply 
upset  the  boat.  They  swim,  one  and  all,  like  real  rats  ; 
the  lost  plunder  can  be  recovered  at  leisure  the  next  day 
by  diving  or  grappling.  The  loss  of  the  boat  counts  for 
little.  Another  is  stolen,  and  the  gang  is  ready  for  busi- 
ness again. 

The  fiction  of  a  social  "  club,"  which  most  of  the  gangs 
keep  up,  helps  them  to  a  pretext  for  blackmailing  the  poli- 
ticians and  the  storekeepers  in  their  bailiwick  at  the  an- 
nual seasons  01  their  picnic,  or  ball.  The  "  thieves'  ball  " 
is  as  well  known  and  recognized  an  institution  on  the  East 
Side  as  the  Charity  Ball  in  a  different  social  stratum,  al- 
though it  does  not  go  by  that  name,  in  print  at  least. 


THE  HARVEST  OF  TARES. 


231 


Indeed,  the  last  thing  a  New  York  tough  will  admit  is 
that  he  is  a  thief.  He  dignifies  his  calling  with  the  pre- 
tence of  gambling.  He  does  not  steal :  he  "  wins  "  your 
money  or  your  watch,  and  on  the  police  returns  he  is  a 
"speculator.''     If,  when  he  passes  around  the  hat  for 


HUNTING  RIVER  THIEVES. 

"  voluntary  "  contributions,  any  storekeeper  should  have 
the  temerity  to  refuse  to  chip  in,  he  may  look  for  a  visit 
from  the  gang  on  the  first  dark  night,  and  account  himself 
lucky  if  his  place  escapes  being  altogether  wrecked.  The 
Heirs  Kitchen  Gans;  and  the  Has;  Gail**  have  both  distin- 


232  HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


guished  themselves  within  recent  times  by  blowing  up  ob- 
jectionable stores  with  stolen  gunpowder.  But  if  no  such 
episode  mar  the  celebration,  the  excursion  comes  off  and 
is  the  occasion  for  a  series  of  drunken  fights  that  as  likely 
as  not  end  in  murder.  No  season  has  passed  within  my 
memory  that  has  not  seen  the  police  reserves  called  out  to 
receive  some  howling  pandemonium  returning  from  a  pic- 
nic grove  on  the  Hudson  or  on  the  Sound.  At  least  one 
peaceful  community  up  the  river,  that  had  borne  with  this 
nuisance  until  patience  had  ceased  to  be  a  virtue,  received 
a  boat-load  of  such  picnickers  in  a  style  befitting  the  occa- 
sion and  the  cargo.  The  outraged  citizens  planted  a 
howitzer  on  the  dock,  and  bade  the  party  land  at  their 
peril.  With  the  loaded  gun  pointed  dead  at  them,  the 
furious  toughs  gave  up  and  the  peace  was  not  broken 
on  the  Hudson  that  day,  at  least  not  ashore.  It  is  good 
cause  for  congratulation  that  the  worst  'of  all  forms  of  re- 
creation popular  among  the  city's  toughs,  the  moonlight 
picnic,  has  been  effectually  discouraged.  Its  opportuni- 
ties for  disgraceful  revelry  and  immorality  were  unrivalled 
anywhere. 

In  spite  of  influence  and  protection,  the  tough  reaches 
eventually  the  end  of  his  rope.  Occasionally — not  too 
often — there  is  a  noose  on  it.  If  not,  the  world  that  owes 
him  a  living,  according  to  his  creed,  will  insist  on  his  earn- 
ing it  on  the  safe  side  of  a  prison  wall.  A  few,  a  very  few, 
have  been  clubbed  into  an  approach  to  righteousness  from 
the  police  standpoint.  The  condemned  tough  goes  up  to 
serve  his  "  bit "  or  couple  of  "  stretches,"  followed  by  the 
applause  of  his  gang.  In  the  prison  he  meets  older 
thieves  than  himself,  and  sits  at  their  feet  listening  with 
respectful  admiration  to  their  accounts  of  the  great  do- 
ings that  sent  them  before.    He  returns  with  the  brand 


THE  HARVEST  OF  TARES. 


233 


of  the  jail  upon  him,  to  encounter  the  hero-worship  of  his 
old  associates  as  an  offset  to  the  cold  shoulder  given  him 
by  all  the  rest  of  the  world.  Even  if  he  is  willing  to 
work,  disgusted  with  the  restraint  and  hard  labor  of 
prison  life,  and  in  a  majority  of  cases  that  thought  is 
probably  uppermost  in  his  mind,  no  one  will  have  him 
around.  If,  with  the  assistance  of  Inspector  Byrnes,  who 
is  a  philanthropist  in  his  own  practical  way,  he  secures  a 
job,  he  is  discharged  on  the  slightest  provocation,  and  for 
the  most  trifling  fault.  Very  soon  he  sinks  back  into  his 
old  surroundings,  to  rise  no  more  until  he  is  lost  to  view 
in  the  queer,  mysterious  way  in  which  thieves  and  fallen 
women  disappear.  Xo  one  can  tell  how.  In  the  ranks 
of  criminals  he  never  rises  above  that  of  the  "  laborer," 
the  small  thief  or  burglar,  or  general  crook,  who  blindly 
does  the  work  planned  for  him  by  others,  and  runs  the 
biggest  risk  for  the  poorest  pay.  It  cannot  be  said  that 
the  "growler"  brought  him  luck,  or  its  friendship  fort- 
une. And  yet,  -if  his  misdeeds  have  helped  to  make  man- 
ifest that  all  effort  to  reclaim  his  kind  must  begin  with 
the  conditions  of  life  against  which  his  very  existence  is 
a  protest,  even  the  tough  lias  not  lived  in  vain.  This 
measure  of  credit  at  least  should  be  accorded  him,  that, 
with  or  without  his  good-will,  he  has  been  a  factor  in 
urging  on  the  battle  against  the  slums  that  bred  him. 
It  is  a  fight  in  which  eternal  vigilance  is  truly  the  price 
of  liberty  and  the  preservation  of  society. 


CHAPTER  XX. 


THE  WORKING  GIRLS  OF  NEW  YORK. 

OF  the  harvest  of  tares,  sown  in  iniquity  and  reaped 
in  wrath,  the  police  returns  tell  the  story.  The  pen 
that  wrote  the  "  Song  of  the  Shirt "  is  needed  to  tell  of 
the  sad  and  toil-worn  lives  of  New  York's  working- 
women.  The  cry  echoes  by  night  and  by  day  through  its 
tenements  : 

Oh,  God !  that  bread  should  be  so  dear, 
And  flesh  and  blood  so  cheap  ! 

Six  months  have  not  passed  since  at  a  great  public  meet- 
ing in  this  city,  the  Working  Women's  Society  reported : 
"  It  is  a  known  fact  that  men's  wages  cannot  fall  below 
a  limit  upon  which  they  can  exist,  but  woman's  wages 
have  no  limit,  since  the  paths  of  shame  are  always  open  to 
her.  It  is  simply  impossible  for  any  woman  to  live  with- 
out assistance  on  the  low  salary  a  saleswoman  earns,  with- 
out depriving  herself  of  real  necessities.  .  .  It  is  inev- 
itable that  they  must  in  many  instances,  resort  to  evil." 
It  was  only  a  few  brief  weeks  before  that  verdict  was  ut- 
tered, that  the  community  was  shocked  by  the  story  of  a 
gentle  and  refined  woman  who,  left  in  direst  poverty  to 
earn  her  own  living  alone  among  strangers,  threw  herself 
from  her  attic  window,  preferring  death  to  dishonor.  "  I 
would  have  done  any  honest  work,  even  to  scrubbing," 


THE  WORKING  GIRLS  OF  NEW  YORK.  235 


she  wrote,  drenched  and  starving,  after  a  vain  search  for 
work  in  a  driving  storm.  She  had  tramped  the  streets 
for  weeks  on  her  weary  errand,  and  the  only  living  wages 
that  were  offered  her  were  the  wages  of  sin.  The  ink 
was  not  dry  upon  her  letter  before  a  woman  in  an  East 
Side  tenement  wrote  down  her  reason  for  self-murder  : 
"  Weakness,  sleeplessness,  and  yet  obliged  to  work.  My 
strength  fails  me.  Sing  at  my  coffin :  '  Where  does  the 
soul  find  a  home  and  rest  ? ' "  Her  story  may  be  found  as 
one  of  two  typical  "  cases  of  despair  "  in  one  little  church 
community,  in  the  City  Mission  Society's  Monthly  for 
last  February.  It  is  a  story  that  has  many  parallels  in 
the  experience  of  every  missionary,  every  police  reporter 
and  every  family  doctor  whose  practice  is  among  the 
poor. 

It  is  estimated  that  at  least  one  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  women  and  girls  earn  their  own  living  in  New 
York  ;  but  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  this  estimate 
falls  far  short  of  the  truth  when  sufficient  account  is  taken 
of  the  large  number  who  are  not  wholly  dependent  upon 
their  own  labor,  while  contributing  by  it  to  the  family's 
earnings.  These  alone  constitute  a  large  class  of  the  wo- 
men wasre-earners,  and  it  is  characteristic  of  the  situation 
that  the  very  fact  that  some  need  not  starve  on  their 
wages  condemns  the  rest  to  that  fate.  "The  pay  they  are 
willing  to  accept  all  have  to  take.  What  the  "  everlast- 
ing law  of  supply  and  demand,"  that  serves  as  such  a  con- 
venient gag  for  public  indignation,  has  to  do  with  it,  one 
learns  from  observation  all  along  the  road  of  inquiry  into 
these  real  woman's  wrongs.  To  take  the  case  of  the  sales- 
women for  illustration  :  The  investigation  of  the  Work- 
ing Women's  Society  disclosed  the  fact  that  wages  averag- 
ing from  $2  to  $1.50  a  week  were  reduced  by  excessive  fines, 


236  HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 

the  employers  placing  a  value  upon  time  lost  that  is  not 
given  to  services  rendered."  A  little  girl,  who  received 
two  dollars  a  week,  made  cash-sales  amounting  to  $167  in 
a  single  day,  while  the  receipts  of  a  fifteen-dollar  male 
clerk  in  the  same  department  footed  up  only  $125  ;  yet 
for  some  trivial  mistake  the  girl  was  fined  sixty  cents  out 
of  her  two  dollars.  The  practice  prevailed  in  some  stores 
of  dividing  the  fines  between  the  superintendent  and  the 
time-keeper  at  the  end  of  the  year.  In  one  instance  they 
amounted  to  $3,000,  and  "  the  superintendent  was  heard  to 
charge  the  time-keeper  with  not  being  strict  enough  in 
his  duties."  One  of  the  causes  for  fine  in  a  certain  large 
store  was  sitting  down.  The  law  requiring  seats  for  sales- 
women, generally  ignored,  was  obeyed  faithfully  in  this 
establishment.  The  seats  were  there,  but  the  girls  were 
fined  when  found  using  them. 

Cash-girls  receiving  $1.75  a  week  for  work  that  at  cer- 
tain seasons  lengthened  their  day  to  sixteen  hours  were 
sometimes  required  to  pay  for  their  aprons.  A  common 
cause  for  discharge  from  stores  in  which,  on  account  of 
the  oppressive  heat  and  lack  of  ventilation,  "  girls  fainted 
day  after  day  and  came  out  looking  like  corpses,"  was  too 
long  service.  No  other  fault  was  found  with  the  dis- 
charged saleswomen  than  that  they  had  been  long  enough 
in  the  employ  of  the  firm  to  justly  expect  an  increase  of 
salary.  The  reason  was  even  given  with  brutal  frank- 
ness, in  some  instances. 

These  facts  give  a  slight  idea  of  the  hardships  and  the 
poor  pay  of  a  business  that  notoriously  absorbs  child-labor. 
The  girls  are  sent  to  the  store  before  they  have  fairly  en- 
tered their  teens,  because  the  money  they  can  earn  there 
is  needed  for  the  support  of  the  family.  If  the  boys  will 
not  work,  if  the  street  tempts  them  from  home,  among 


THE  WORKING  GIRLS  OF  NEW  YORK. 


237 


the  girls  at  least  there  must  be  no  drones.  To  keep  their 
places  they  are  told  to  lie  about  their  age  and  to  say  that 
they  are  over  fourteen.  The  precaution  is  usually  super- 
fluous. The  Women's  Investigating  Committee  found  the 
majority  of  the  children  employed  in  the  stores  to  be  un- 
der age,  but  heard  only  in  a  single  instance  of  the  truant 
officers  calling.  In  that  case  they  came  once  a  year  and 
sent  the  youngest  children  home  ;  but  in  a  month's  time 
they  were  all  back  in  their  places,  and  were  not  again  dis- 
turbed. When  it  comes  to  the  factories,  where  hard  bod- 
ily labor  is  added  to  long  hours,  stifling  rooms,  and  starva- 
tion wages,  matters  are  even  worse.  The  Legislature  lias 
passed  laws  to  prevent  the  employment  of  children,  as  it 
has  forbidden  saloon-keepers  to  sell  them  beer,  and  it  has 
provided  means  of  enforcing  its  mandate,  so  efficient,  that 
the  very  number  of  factories  in  New  York  is  guessed  at 
as  in  the  neighborhood  of  twelve  thousand.  Up  till  this 
summer,  a  single  inspector  was  charged  with  the  duty  of 
keeping  the  run  of  them  all,  and  of  seeing  to  it  that  the 
law  was  respected  by  the  owners. 

Sixty  cents  is  put  as  the  average  day's  earnings  of  the 
150,000,  but  into  this  computation  enters  the  stylish 
"cashier's"  two  dollars  a  day,  as  well  as  the  thirty  cents 
of  the  poor  little  girl  who  pulls  threads  in  an  East  Side 
factory,  and,  if  anything,  the  average  is 'probably  too  high. 
Such  as  it  is,  however,  it  represents  board,  rent,  clothing, 
and  "  pleasure  "  to  this  army  of  workers.  Here  is  the 
case  of  a  woman  employed  in  the  manufacturing  depart- 
ment of  a  Broadway  house.  It  stands  for  a  hundred  like 
her  own.  She  averages  three  dollars  a  week.  Pays  $1.50 
for  her  room  ;  for  breakfast  she  has  a  cup  of  coffee  ;  lunch 
she  cannot  afford.  One  meal  a  day  is  her  allowance. 
This  woman  is  young,  she  is  pretty.    She  has  "  the  world 


238 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


before  her."  Is  it  anything  less  than  a  miracle  if  she  is 
guilty  of  nothing  worse  than  the  "early  and  improvident 
marriage,"  against  which  moralists  exclaim  as  one  of  the 
prolific  causes  of  the  distress  of  the  poor?    Almost  any 


SEWING  AND  STARVING  IN  AN  ELIZABETH  STREET  ATTIC. 


door  might  seem  to  offer  welcome  escape  from  such  slav- 
ery as  this.  "  i  feel  so  much  healthier  since  I  got  three 
square  meals  a  day,"  said  a  lodger  in  one  of  the  Girls' 
Homes.  Two  young  sewing-girls  came  in  seeking  domes- 
tic service,  so  that  they  might  get  enough  to  eat.  They 


THE  WO  EKING  GIELS  OF  NEW  YOEK. 


239 


had  been  only  half-fed  for  some  time,  and  starvation  had 
driven  them  to  the  one  door  at  which  the  pride  of  the 
American-born  girl  will  not  permit  her  to  knock,  though 
poverty  be  the  price  of  her  independence. 

The  tenement  and  the  competition  of  public  institu- 
tions and  farmers'  wives  and  daughters,  have  done  the 
tyrant  shirt  to  death,  but  they  have  not  bettered  the  lot 
of  the  needle-women.    The  sweater  of  the  East  Side  has 
appropriated  the  flannel  shirt.    He  turns  them  out  to-day 
at  forty-five  cents  a  dozen,  paying  his  Jewish  workers 
from  twenty  to  thirty-live  cents.    One  of  these  testified 
before  the  State  Board  of  Arbitration,  during  the  shirt- 
makers'  strike,  that  she  worked  eleven  hours  in  the  shop 
and  four  at  home,  and  had  never  in  the  best  of  times 
made  over  six  dollars  a  week.    Another  stated  that  she 
worked  from  4  o'clock  in  the  morning  to  11  at  night.  These 
girls  had  to  find  their  own  thread  and  pay  for  their  own 
machines  out  of  their  wages.    The  white  shirt  has  gone  to 
the  public  and  private  institutions  that  shelter  large  num- 
bers of  young  girls,  and  to  the  country.    There  are  not 
half  as  many  shirtmakers  in  Xew  York  to-day  as  only  a 
few  years  ago,  and  some  of  the  largest  firms  have  closed 
their  city  shops.    The  same  is  true  of  the  manufacturers 
of  underwear.    One  large  Broadway  firm  has  nearly  all 
its  work  done  by  farmers' girls  in  Maine,  who  think  them- 
selves well  off  if  they  can  earn  two  or  three  dollars  a  week 
to  pay  for  a  Sunday  silk,  or  the  wedding  outfit,  little 
dreaming  of  the  part  they  are  playing  in  starving  their  city 
sisters.  Literally,  they  sew  "  with  double  thread,  a  shroud 
as  well  as  a  shirt."     Their  pin-money  sets  the  rate  of 
wages  for  thousands  of  poor  sewing-girls  in  ^ew  York. 
The  average  earnings  of  the  worker  on  underwear  to-day 
do  not  exceed  the  three  dollars  which  her  competitor 


240 


HCHV  THE  OTHEI1  HALF  LIVES. 


among  the  Eastern  hills  is  willing  to  accept  as  the  price  of 
her  play.  The  shirtmaker's  pay  is  better  only  because  the 
very  finest  custom  work  is  all  there  is  left  for  her  to  do. 

Calico  wrappers  at  a  dollar  and  a  half  a  dozen — the 
very  expert  sewers  able  to  make  from  eight  to  ten,  the 
common  run  five  or  six — neckties  at  from  25  to  75  cents 
a  dozen,  with  a  dozen  as  a  good  day's  work,  are  specimens 
of  women's  wages.  And  yet  people  persist  in  wondering 
at  the  poor  quality  of  work  done  in  the  tenements!  Ital- 
ian cheap  labor  has  come  of  late  also  to  possess  this  poor 
field,  with  the  sweater  in  its  train.  There  is  scarce  a 
branch  of  woman's  work  outside  of  the  home  in  which 
wages,  long  since  at  low-water  mark,  have  not  fallen  to 
the  point  of  actual  starvation.  A  case  was  brought  to  my 
notice  recently  by  a  woman  doctor,  whose  heart  as  well  as 
her  life-work  is  with  the  poor,  of  a  widow  with  two  little 
children  she  found  at  work  in  an  East  Side  attic,  making 
paper-bags.  Her  father,  she  told  the  doctor,  had  made 
good  wages  at  it  ;  but  she  received  only  five  cents  for  six 
hundred  of  the  little  three-cornered  bags,  and  her  fingers 
had  to  be  very  swift  and  handle  the  paste-brush  very  deft- 
ly to  bring  her  earnings  up  to  twenty-five  and  thirty 
cents  a  day.  She  paid  four  dollars  a  month  for  her  room. 
The  rest  went  to  buy  food  for  herself  and  the  children. 
The  physician's  purse,  rather  than  her  skill,  had  healing 
for  their  complaint. 

I  have  aimed  to  set  down  a  few  dry  facts  merely.  They 
carry  their  own  comment.  Back  of  the  shop  with  its 
weary,  grinding  toil — the  home  in  the  tenement,  of  which 
it  was  said  in  a  report  of  the  State  Labor  Bureau  :  "  De- 
cency and  womanly  reserve  cannot  be  maintained  there — 
what  wonder  so  many  fall  away  from  virtue  ?  "  Of  the 
outlook,  what  ?    Last  Christmas  Eve  my  business  took  me 


THE  WORKING  GIRLS  OF  NEW  YORK.  241 


to  an  obscure  street  among  the  West  Side  tenements.  An 
old  woman  had  just  fallen  on  the  doorstep,  stricken  with 
paralysis.  The  doctor  said  she  would  never  again  move 
her  right  hand  or  foot.  The  whole  side  was  dead.  By 
her  bedside,  in  their  cheerless  room,  sat  the  patient's  aged 
sister,  a  hopeless  cripple,  in  dumb  despair.  Forty  years 
ago  the  sisters  had  come,  five  in  number  then,  with  their 
mother,  from  the  ^North  of  Ireland  to  make  their  home 
and  earn  a  living  among  strangers.  They  were  lace  em- 
broiderers and  found  work  easily  at  good  wages.  All  the 
rest  had  died  as  the  years  went  by.  The  two  remained 
and,  firmly  resolved  to  lead  an  honest  life,  worked  on 
though  wages  fell  and  fell  as  age  and  toil  stiffened  their 
once  nimble  fingers  and  dimmed  their  sight.  Then  one  of 
them  dropped  out,  her  hands  palsied  and  her  courage  gone. 
Still  the  other  toiled  on,  resting  neither  by  night  nor  by 
day,  that  the  sister  might  not  want.  Xow  that  she  too 
had  been  stricken,  as  she  was  going  to  the  store  for  the 
work  that  was  to  keep  them  through  the  holidays,  the 
battle  was  over  at  last.  There  was  before  them  starvation, 
or  the  poor-house.  And  the  proud  spirits  of  the  sisters, 
helpless  now,  quailed  at  the  outlook. 

These  were  old,  with  life  behind  them.  For  them 
nothing  was  left  but  to  sit  in  the  shadow  and  wait.  But 
of  the  thousands,  who  are  travelling  the  road  they  trod 
to  the  end,  with  the  hot  blood  of  youth  in  their  veins, 
with  the  love  of  life  and  of  the  beautiful  world  to  which 
not  even  sixty  cents  a  day  can  shut  their  eyes — who  is  to 
blame  if  their  feet  find  the  paths  of  shame  that  are  "  al- 
ways open  to  them  ?  "  The  very  paths  that  have  effaced 
the  saving  "  limit,"  and  to  which  it  is  declared  to  be  "in- 
evitable that  they  must  in  many  instances  resort."  Let 
the  moralist  answer.  Let  the  wise  economist  apply  his 
16 


242 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


rule  of  supply  and  demand,  and  let  the  answer  be  heard  in 
this  city  of  a  thousand  charities  where  justice  goes  beg- 
ging. 

To  the  everlasting  credit  of  New  York's  working-girl 
let  it  be  said  that,  rough  though  her  road  be,  all  but  hope- 
less her  battle  with  life,  only  in  the  rarest  instances  does 
she  go  astray.  As  a  class  she  is  brave,  virtuous,  and  true. 
New  York's  army  of  profligate  women  is  not,  as  in  some 
foreign  cities,  recruited  from  her  ranks.  She  is  as  plucky 
as  she  is  proud.  That  "American  girls  never  whimper" 
became  a  proverb  long  ago,  and  she  accepts  her  lot  un- 
complainingly, doing  the  best  she  can  and  holding  her 
cherished  independence  cheap  at  the  cost  of  a  meal,  or  of 
half  her  daily  ration,  if  need  be.  The  home  in  the  tene- 
ment and  the  traditions  of  her  childhood  have  neither 
trained  her  to  luxury  nor  predisposed  her  in  favor  of  do- 
mestic labor  in  preference  to  the  shop.  So,  to  the  world 
she  presents  a  cheerful,  uncomplaining  front  that  some- 
times deceives  it.  Her  courage  will  not  be  without  its 
reward.  Slowly,  as  the  conviction  is  thrust  upon  society 
that  woman's  work  must  enter  more  and  more  into  its 
planning,  a  better  day  is  dawning.  The  organization  of 
working  girls'  clubs,  unions,  and  societies  with  a  commu- 
nity of  interests,  despite  the  obstacles  to  such  a  movement, 
bears  testimony  to  it,  as  to  the  devotion  of  the  unselfish 
women  who  have  made  their  poorer  sisters'  cause  their 
own,  and  will  yet  wring  from  an  unfair  world  the  justice 
too  lon^  denied  her. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

jr 

PAUPERISM  IN  THE  TENEMENTS. 

THE  reader  who  has  followed  with  me  the  fate  of  the 
Other  Half  thus  far,  may  not  experience  much  of  a 
shock  at  being  told  that  in  eight  years  135,595  families  in 
New  York  were  registered  as  asking  or  receiving  charity. 
Perhaps,  however,  the  intelligence  will  rouse  him  that  for 
five  years  past  one  person  in  every  ten  who  died  in  this 
city  was  buried  in  the  Potter's  Field.  These  facts  tell  a 
terrible  story.  The  first  means  that  in  a  population  of  a 
million  and  a  half,  very  nearly,  if  not  quite,  half  a  million 
persons  were  driven,  or  chose,  to  beg  for  food,  or  to  ac- 
cept it  in  charity  at  some  period  of  the  eight  years,  if  not 
during  the  whole  of  it.  There  is  no  mistake  about  these 
figures.  They  are  drawn  from  the  records  of  the  Charity 
Organization  Society,  and  represent  the  time  during  which 
it  has  been  in  existence.  It  is  not  even  pretended  that 
the  record  is  complete.  To  be  well  within  the  limits,  the 
Society's  statisticians  allow  only  three  and  a  half  to  the 
family,  instead  of  the  four  and  a  half  that  are  accepted  as 
the  standard  of  calculations  which  deal  with  New  York's 
population  as  a  whole.  They  estimate  upon  the  basis  of 
their  every-day  experience  that,  allowing  for  those  who 
have  died,  moved  away,  or  become  for  the  time  being  at 
least  self-supporting,  eighty-five  per  cent,  of  the  registry 
are  still  within,  or  lingering  upon,  the  borders  of  depen- 
dence.   Precisely  how  the  case  stands  with  this  great 


244 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


horde  of  the  indigent  is  shown  by  a  classification  of  5,169 
cases  that  were  investigated  by  the  Society  in  one  year. 
This  was  the  way  it  turned  out :  327  worthy  of  continu- 
ous relief,  or  6.4  percent.;  1,269  worthy  of  temporary 
relief,  or  24.4  per  cent. ;  2,698  in  need  of  work,  rather 
than  relief,  or  52.2  per  cent. ;  875  unworthy  of  relief,  or 
17  per  cent. 

That  is,  nearly  six  and  a  half  per  cent,  of  all  were  ut- 
terly helpless — orphans,  cripples,  or  the  very  aged  ;  nearly 
one-fourth  needed  just  a  lift  to  start  them  on  the  road  of 
independence,  or  of  permanent  pauperism,  according  to 
the  wisdom  with  which  the  lever  was  applied.  More  than 
half  were  destitute  because  they  had  no  work  and  were 
unable  to  find  any,  and  one-sixth  were  frauds,  professional 
beggars,  training  their  children  to  follow  in  their  foot- 
steps— a  veritable  k' tribe  of  Ishraael,"  tightening  its  grip 
on  society  as  the  years  pass,  until  society  shall  summon  up 
pluck  to  say  with  Paul,  "  if  any  man  will  not  work  neither 
shall  he  eat,"  and  stick  to  it.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  al- 
most precisely  the  same  results  followed  a  similar  investi- 
gation in  Boston.  There  were  a  few  more  helpless  cases 
of  the  sort  true  charity  accounts  it  a  gain  to  care  for,  but 
the  proportion  of  a  given  lot  that  was  crippled  for  want 
of  work,  or  unworthy,  was  exactly  the  same  as  in  this 
city.  The  bankrupt  in  hope,  in  courage,  in  purse,  and  in 
purpose,  are  not  peculiar  to  2sew  York.  They  are  found 
the  world  over,  but  we  have  our  full  share.  If  further 
proof  were  wanted,  it  is  found  in  the  prevalence  of  pauper 
burials.  The  Potter's  Field  stands  ever  for  utter,  hope- 
less surrender.  The  last  the  poor  will  let  go,  however 
miserable  their  lot  in  life,  is  the  hope  of  a  decent  burial. 
But  for  the  five  years  ending  with  1888  the  average  of 
burials  in  the  Potter's  Field  has  been  10.03  per  cent,  of 


PAUPERISM  IN  THE  TENEMENTS. 


245 


all.  In  1889  it  was  9.64.  In  that  year  the  proportion 
to  the  total  mortality  of  those  who  died  in  hospitals,  in- 
stitutions, and  in  the  Almshouse  was  as  1  in  5. 

The  135,595  families  inhabited  no  fewer  than  31,000 
different  tenements.    I  say  tenements  advisedly,  though 


A  FLAT  IN  THE  PAUPER  BARRACKS,  WEST  THIRTY-EIGHTH  STREET,  WITH  ALL  ITS 
FURNITURE. 

the  society  calls  them  buildings,  because  at  least  ninety- 
nine  per  cent,  were  found  in  the  big  barracks,  the  rest  in 
shanties  scattered  here  and  there,  and  now  and  then  a 
fraud  or  an  exceptional  case  of  distress  in  a  dwelling- 
house  of  better  class.  Here,  undoubtedly,  allowance  must 
be  made  for  the  constant  moving  about  of  those  who  live 


246 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


on  charity,  which  enables  one  active  beggar  to  blacklist 
a  dozen  houses  in  the  year.  Still  the  great  mass  of  the 
tenements  are  shown  to  be  harboring  alms-seekers.  They 
might  almost  as  safely  harbor  the  small -pox.  That 
scourge  is  not  more  contagious  than  the  alms-seeker's  com- 
plaint. There  are  houses  that  have  been  corrupted 
through  and  through  by  this  pestilence,  until  their  very 
atmosphere  breathes  beggary.  More  than  a  hundred  and 
twenty  pauper  families  have  been  reported  from  time  to 
time  as  living  in  one  such  tenement. 

The  truth  is  that  pauperism  grows  in  the  tenements  as 
naturally  as  weeds  in  a  garden  lot.  A  moral  distemper, 
like  crime,  it  finds  there  its  most  fertile  soil.  All  the 
surroundings  of  tenement-house  life  favor  its  growth,  and 
where  once  it  has  taken  root  it  is  harder  to  dislodge  than 
the  most  virulent  of  physical  diseases.  The  thief  is  in- 
finitely easier  to  deal  with  than  the  pauper,  because  the 
very  fact  of  his  being  a  thief  presupposes  some  bottom  to 
the  man.  Granted  that  it  is  bad,  there  is  still  some- 
thing, a  possible  handle  by  which  to  catch  him.  To  the 
pauper  there  is  none.  He  is  as  hopeless  as  his  own 
poverty.  I  speak  of  the  pauper,  not  of  the  honestly  poor. 
There  is  a  sharp  line  between  the  two ;  but  athwart  it 
stands  the  tenement,  all  the  time  blurring  and  blotting  it 
out.  "  It  all  comes  down  to  character  in  the  end,"  was 
the  verdict  of  a  philanthropist  whose  life  has  been  spent 
wrestling  with  this  weary  problem.  And  so  it  comes 
down  to  the  tenement,  the  destroyer  of  individuality  and 
character  everywhere.  "  In  nine  years,"  said  a  wise  and 
charitable  physician,  sadly,  to  me,  "  I  have  known  of  but  a 
single  case  of  permanent  improvement  in  a  poor  tenement 
family."  I  have  known  of  some,  whose  experience,  ex- 
tending over  an  even  longer  stretch,  was  little  better. 


PAUPERISM  IN  THE  TENEMENTS. 


247 


The  beggar  follows  the  "  tough's  "  rule  of  life  that  the 
world  owes  him  a  living,  but  his  scheme  of  collecting  it 
stops  short  of  violence.  He  has  not  the  pluck  to  rob  even 
a  drunken  man.  His  highest  flights  take  in  at  most  an 
unguarded  clothes-line,  or  a  little  child  sent  to  buy  bread 
or  beer  with  the  pennies  he  clutches  tightly  as  he  skips 
along.  Even  then  he  prefers  to  attain  his  end  by  strata- 
gem rather  than  by  force,  though  occasionally,  when  the 
coast  is  clear,  he  rises  to  the  height  of  the  bully.  The 
ways  he  finds  of  u  collecting  "  under  the  cloak  of  unde- 
served poverty  are  numberless,  and  often  reflect  credit  on 
the  man's  ingenuity,  if  not  on  the  man  himself.  I  remem- 
ber the  shock  with  which  my  first  experience  with  his 
kind — her  kind,  rather,  in  this  case :  the  beggar  was  a 
woman — came  home  to  me.  On  my  way  to  and  from  the 
office  I  had  been  giving  charity  regularly,  as  I  fondly  be- 
lieved, to  an  old  woman  who  sat  in  Chatham  Square  with 
a  baby  done  up  in  a  bundle  of  rags,  moaning  piteously  in 
sunshine  and  rain,  "Please,  help  the  poor."  It  was  the 
baby  I  pitied  and  thought  I  was  doing  my  little  to  help, 
until  one  night  I  was  just  in  time  to  rescue  it  from  rolling 
out  of  her  lap,  and  found  the  bundle  I  had  been  wasting 
my  pennies  upon  just  rags  and  nothing  more,  and  the  old 
has:  dead  drunk.  Since  then  I  have  encountered  bo°;us 
babies,  borrowed  babies,  and  drugged  babies  in  the  streets, 
and  fought  shy  of  them  all.  Most  of  them,  I  am  glad  to 
say,  have  been  banished  from  the  street  since ;  but  they 
are  still  occasionally  to  be  found.  It  was  only  last  winter 
that  the  officers  of  the  Society  for  the  Prevention  of 
Cruelty  to  Children  arrested  an  Italian  woman  who  was 
begging  along  Madison  Avenue  with  a  poor  little  wreck  of 
a  girl,  whose  rags  and  pinched  face  were  calculated  to  tug 
hard  at  the  purse-strings  of  a  miser.    Over  five  dollars  in 


248 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


nickles  and  pennies  were  taken  from  the  woman's  pockets, 
and  when  her  story  of  poverty  and  hunger  was  investi- 
gated at  the  family's  home  in  a  Baxter  Street  tenement, 
bank-books  turned  up  that  showed  the  Masonis  to  be  reg- 
ular pauper  capitalists,  able  to  draw  their  check  for  three 
thousand  dollars,  had  they  been  so  disposed.  The  woman 
was  fined  $250,  a  worse  punishment  undoubtedly  than  to 
have  sent  her  to  prison  for  the  rest  of  her  natural  life. 
Her  class  has,  unhappily,  representatives  in  New  York 
that  have  not  yet  been  brought  to  grief. 

Nothing  short  of  making  street  begging  a  crime  has 
availed  to  clear  our  city  of  this  pest  to  an  appreciable  ex- 
tent. By  how  much  of  an  effort  this  result  has  been 
accomplished  may  be  gleaned  from  the  fact  that  the  Char- 
ity Organization  Society  alone,  in  five  years,  caused  the 
taking  up  of  2,594  street  beggars,  and  the  arrest  and  con- 
viction of  1,474  persistent  offenders.  Last  year  it  dealt 
with  612  perambulating  mendicants.  The  police  report 
only  19  arrests  for  begging  during  the  year  1889,  but  the 
real  facts  of  the  case  are  found  under  the  heading  "  va- 
grancy." In  all,  2,633  persons  were  charged  with  this 
offence,  947  of  them  women.  A  goodly  proportion  of 
these  latter  came  from  the  low  groggeries  of  the  Tenth 
"Ward,  where  a  peculiar  variety  of  the  female  tramp- beggar 
is  at  home,  the  "  scrub.''  The  scrub  is  one  degree  per- 
haps above  the  average  pauper  in  this,  that  she  is  willing 
to  work  at  least  one  day  in  the  week,  generally  the  Jew- 
ish Sabbath.  The  orthodox  Jew  can  do  no  work  of  any 
sort  from  Friday  evening  till  sunset  on  Saturday,  and  this 
interim  the  scrub  fills  out  in  Ludlow  Street.  The  pittance 
she  receives  for  this  vicarious  sacrifice  of  herself  upon  the 
altar  of  the  ancient  faith  buys  her  rum  for  at  least  two 
days  of  the  week  at  one  of  the  neighborhood  "  morgues." 


PAUPERISM  IN  THE  TENEMENTS. 


249 


She  lives  through  the  other  four  by  begging.  There  are 
distilleries  in  Jew  town,  or  just  across  its  borders,  that  de- 
pend almost  wholly  on  her  custom.  Recently,  when  one 
in  Hester  Street  was  raided  because  the  neighbors  had 
complained  of  the  boisterous  hilarity  of  the  hags  over 
their  beer,  thirty  two  aged  "scrubs"  were  marched  off  to 
the  station-house. 

It  is  curious  to  find  preconceived  notions  quite  upset  in 
a  review  of  the  nationalities  that  go  to  make  up  this  squad 
of  street  beggars.  The  Irish  head  the  list  with  fifteen  per 
cent.,  and  the  native  American  is  only  a  little  way  behind 
with  twelve  per  cent.,  while  the  Italian,  who  in  his  own 
country  turns  beggary  into  a  fine  art,  has  less  than  two  per 
cent.  Eight  per  cent,  were  Germans.  The  relative  prev- 
alence of  the  races  in  our  population  does  not  account  for 
this  showing.  Various  causes  operate,  no  doubt,  to  pro- 
duce it.  Chief  among  them  is,  I  think,  the  tenement 
itself.  It  has  no  power  to  corrupt  the  Italian,  who  comes 
here  in  almost  every  instance  to  work — no  beggar  would 
ever  emigrate  from  anywhere  unless  forced  to  do  so.  He 
is  distinctly  on  its  lowest  level  from  the  start.  With  the 
Irishman  the  case  is  different.  The  tenement,  especially 
its  lowest  type,  appears  to  possess  a  peculiar  affinity  for 
the  worse  nature  of  the  Celt,  to  whose  best  and  strongest 
instincts  it  does  violence,  and  soonest  and  most  thoroughly 
corrupts  him.  The  "  native  "  twelve  per  cent,  represent 
the  result  of  this  process,  the  hereditary  beggar  of  the 
second  or  third  generation  in  the  slums. 

The  blind  beggar  alone  is  winked  at  in  New  York's 
streets,  because  the  authorities  do  not  know  what  else  to 
do  with  him.  There  is  no  provision  for  him  anywhere 
after  he  is  old  enough  to  strike  out  for  himself.  The  an- 
nual pittance  of  thirty  or  forty  dollars  which  he  receives 


250 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


from  the  city  serves  to  keep  his  landlord  in  good  humor  ; 
for  the  rest  his  misfortune  and  his  thin  disguise  of  selling 
pencils  on  the  street  corners  must  provide.  Until  the 
city  affords  him  some  systematic  way  of  earning  his  living 
by  work  (as  Philadelphia  has  done,  for  instance)  to  banish 
him  from  the  street  would  be  tantamount  to  sentencing  him 
to  death  by  starvation.  So  he  possesses  it  in  peace,  that 
is,  if  he  is  blind  in  good  earnest,  and  begs  without  "  en- 
cumbrance." Professional  mendicancy  does  not  hesitate 
to  make  use  of  the  greatest  of  human  afflictions  as  a  pre- 
tence for  enlisting  the  sympathy  upon  which  it  thrives. 
Many  New  Yorkers  will  remember  the  French  school- 
master who  was  "  blinded  by  a  shell  at  the  siege  of  Paris," 
but  miraculously  recovered  his  sight  when  arrested  and 
deprived  of  his  children  by  the  officers  of  Mr.  Gerry's 
society.  When  last  heard  of  he  kept  a  "  museum  "  in 
Hartford,  and  acted  the  overseer  with  financial  success. 
His  sign  with  its  pitiful  tale,  that  was  a  familiar  sight  in 
our  streets  for  years  and  earned  for  him  the  capital  upon 
which  he  started  his  business,  might  have  found  a  place 
among  the  curiosities  exhibited  there,  had  it  not  been 
kept  in  a  different  sort  of  museum  here  as  a  memento  of 
his  rascality.  There  was  another  of  his  tribe,  a  woman, 
who  begged  for  years  with  a  deformed  child  in  her  arms, 
which  she  was  found  to  have  hired  at  an  almshouse  in  Ge- 
noa for  fifteen  francs  a  month.  It  was  a  good  investment, 
for  she  proved  to  be  possessed  of  a  comfortable  fortune. 
Some  time  before  that,  the  Society  for  the  Prevention  of 
Cruelty  to  Children,  that  found  her  out,  had  broken  up 
the  dreadful  padrone  system,  a  real  slave  trade  in  Italian 
children,  who  were  bought  of  poor  parents  across  the  sea 
and  made  to  beg  their  way  on  foot  through  France  to  the 
port  whence  they  were  shipped  to  this  city,  to  be  beaten 


PAUPEEISM  IN  THE  TENEMENTS.  251 


and  starved  here  by  their  cruel  masters  and  sent  out  to 
beg,  often  after  merciless  mutilation  to  make  them  "  take  " 
better  with  a  pitying  public. 

But,  after  all,  the  tenement  offers  a  better  chance  of 
fraud  on  impulsive  but  thoughtless  charity,  than  all  the 
wretchedness  of  the  street,  and  with  fewer  risks.  To  the 
tender-hearted  and  unwary  it  is,  in  itself,  the  strongest  plea 
for  help.  When  such  a  cry  goes  up  as  was  heard  recent- 
ly from  a  Mott  Street  den,  where  the  family  of  a  "sick" 
husband,  a  despairing  mother,  and  half  a  dozen  children 
in  rags  and  dirt  were  destitute  of  the  "  first  necessities  of 
life,"  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  a  stream  of  gold  comes 
pouring  in  to  relieve.  It  happens  too  often,  as  in  that 
case,  that  a  little  critical  inquiry  or  reference  to  the  "  black 
list"  of  the  Charity  Organization  Society,  justly  dreaded 
only  by  the  frauds,  discovers  the  "  sickness"  to  stand  for 
laziness,  and  the  destitution  to  be  the  family's  stock  in 
trade ;  and  the  community  receives  a  shock  that  for  once 
is  downright  wholesome,  if  it  imposes  a  check  on  an  un- 
discrimiiiHting  charity  that  is  worse  than  none  at  all. 

The  case  referred  to  furnished  an  apt  illustration  of 
how  thoroughly  corrupting  pauperism  is  in  such  a  setting. 
The  tenement  woke  up  early  to  the  gold  mine  that  was 
being  worked  tinder  its  roof,  and  before, the  day  was  three 
hours  old  the  stream  of  callers  who  responded  to  the  news- 
paper appeal  found  the  alley  blocked  by  a  couple  of 
"  toughs,"  who  exacted  toll  of  a  silver  quarter  from  each 
tearful  sympathizer  with  the  misery  in  the  attic. 

A  volume  might  be  written  about  the  tricks  of  the  pro- 
fessional beo-o-ar,  and  the  uses  to  which  he  turns  the  tene- 
ment  in  his  trade.  The  Boston  "  widow  "  whose  husband 
turned  up  alive  and  well  after  she  had  buried  him  seven- 
teen times  with  tears  and  lamentation,  and  made  the  pub- 


252 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


lie  pay  for  the  weekly  funerals,  is  not  without  representa- 
tives in  New  York.  The  "  gentleman  tramp  "  is  a  famil- 
iar type  from  our  streets,  and  the  "  once  respectable 
Methodist "  who  patronized  all  the  revivals  in  town  with 
his  profitable  story  of  repentance,  only  to  fall  from  grace 
into  the  saloon  door  nearest  the  church  after  the  service 


COFFEE  AT  ONE  CENT. 


was  over,  merely  transferred  the  scene  of  his  operations 
from  the  tenement  to  the  church  as  the  proper  setting  for 
his  specialty.  There  is  enough  of  real  suffering  in  the 
homes  of  the  poor  to  make  one  wish  that  there  were  some 
effective  way  of  enforcing  Paul's  plan  of  starving  the  drones 
into  the  paths  of  self-support :  no  work,  nothing  to  eat. 
The  message  came  from  one  of  the  Health  Depart- 


PAUPERISM  IX  THE  TENEMENTS. 


253 


inent's  summer  doctors,  last  July,  to  the  King's  Daugh- 
ters' Tenement-house  Committee,  that  a  family  with  a 
sick  child  was  absolutely  famishing  in  an  uptown  tene- 
ment. The  address  was  not  given.  The  doctor  had 
forgotten  to  write  it  down,  and  before  he  could  be  found 
and  a  visitor  sent  to  the  house  the  baby  was  dead,  and 
the  mother  had  gone  mad.  The  nurse  found  the  father, 
who  was  an  honest  laborer  long  out  of  work,  pack- 
ing the  little  corpse  in  an  orange-box  partly  filled  with 
straw,  that  he  might  take  it  to  the  Morgue  for  pauper 
burial.  There  was  absolutely  not  a  crust  to  eat  in  the 
house,  and  the  other  children  were  crying  for  food. 
The  great  immediate  need  in  that  case,  as  in  more  than 
half  of  all  according  to  the  record,  was  work  and  liv- 
ing wages.  Alms  do  not  meet  the  emergency  at  all. 
They  frequently  aggravate  it,  degrading  and  pauperiz- 
ing where  true  help  should  aim  at  raising  the  sufferer 
to  self-respect  and  self-dependence.  The  experience  of 
the  Charity  Organization  Society  in  raising,  in  eight 
years,  4,.r>00  families  out  of  the  rut  of  pauperism  into 
proud,  if  modest,  independence,  without  alms,  but  by 
a  system  of  "  friendly  visitation,"  and  the  work  of  the 
Society  for  Improving  the  Condition  of  the  Poor  and 
kindred  organizations  along  the  same  line,  shows  what 
can  be  done  by  well-directed  effort.  It  is  estimated  that 
New  York  spends  in  public  and  private  charity  every 
year  a  round  $8, 000,000.  A  small  part  of  this  sum  in- 
telligently invested  in  a  great  labor  bureau,  that  would 
brino;  the  seeker  of  work  and  the  one  with  work  to  o-ive 
together  under  auspices  offering  some  degree  of  mutual 
security,  would  certainly  repay  the  amount  of  the  invest- 
ment in  the  saving  of  much  capital  now  worse  than 
wasted,  and  would  be  prolific  of  the  best  results.  The 


254 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


ultimate  and  greatest  need,  however,  the  real  remedy,  is 
to  remove  the  cause — the  tenement  that  was  built  for  "  a 
class  of  whom  nothing  was  expected,"  and  which  has  come 
fully  up  to  the  expectation.  Tenement-house  reform 
holds  the  key  to  the  problem  of  pauperism  in  the  city. 
We  can  never  get  rid  of  either  the  tenement  or  the  pau- 
per. The  two  will  always  exist  together  in  New  York. 
But  by  reforming  the  one,  we  can  do  more  toward  exter- 
minating the  other  than  can  be  done  by  all  other  means 
together  that  have  yet  been  invented,  or  ever  will  be. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 


THE  WRECKS  AND  THE  WASTE. 

PAUPERDOM  is  to  blame  for  the  unjust  yoking  of 
poverty  with  punishment,  "  charities"  with  "correc- 
tion,'' in  our  municipal  ministering  to  the  needs  of  the 
Nether  Half.  The  shadow  of  the  workhouse  points  like 
a  scornful  finger  toward  its  neighbor,  the  almshouse,  when 
the  sun  sets  behind  the  teeming  city  across  the  East  River, 
as  if,  could  its  stones  speak,  it  would  say  before  night 
drops  its  black  curtain  between  them  :  "  You  and  I  are 
brothers.  I  am  not  more  bankrupt  in  moral  purpose  than 
you.  A  common  parent  begat  us.  Twin  breasts,  the  ten- 
ement and  the  saloon,  nourished  us.  Vice  and  unthrift 
go  hand  in  hand.  Pauper,  behold  thy  brother !  "  And 
the  almshouse  owns  the  bitter  relationship  in  silence. 

Over  on  the  islands  that  lie  strung  along  the  river  and 
far  up  the  Sound  the  Nether  Half  hides  its  deformity,  ex- 
cept on  show-days,  when  distinguished  visitors  have  to  be 
entertained  and  the  sore  is  uncovered  by  the  authorities 
with  due  municipal  pride  in  the  exhibit.  I  shall  spare 
the  reader  the  sight.  The  aim  of  these  pages  has  been  to 
lay  bare  its  source.  But  a  brief  glance  at  our  proscribed 
population  is  needed  to  give  background  and  tone  to  the 
picture.  The  review  begins  with  the  Charity  Hospital 
with  its  thousand  helpless  human  wrecks  ;  takes  in  the 
penitentiary,  where  the  "tough "from  Battle  Row  and 


256 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


Poverty  Gap  is  made  to  earn  behind  stone  walls  the  living 
the  world  owes  him  ;  a  thoughtless,  jolly  convict-band  with 
opportunity  at  last  "  to  think  "  behind  the  iron  bars,  but 
little  desire  to  improve  it ;  governed  like  unruly  boys, 
which  in  fact  most  of  them  are.  Three  of  them  were 
taken  from  the  dinner-table  while  I  was  there  one  day, 
for  sticking  pins  into  each  other,  and  were  set  with  their 
faces  to  the  wall  in  sight  of  six  hundred  of  their  comrades 
for  punishment.  Pleading  incessantly  for  tobacco,  when 
the  keeper's  back  is  turned,  as  the  next  best  thing  to  the 
whiskey  they  cannot  get,  though  they  can  plainly  make 
out  the  saloon-signs  across  the  stream  where  they  robbed 
or  "  slugged  "  their  way  to  prison.  Every  once  in  a  while 
the  longing  gets  the  best  of  some  prisoner  from  the  peni- 
tentiary or  the  workhouse,  and  he  risks  his  life  in  the  swift 
currents  to  reach  the  goal  that  tantilizes  him  with  the 
promise  of  "  just  one  more  drunk."  The  chances  are  at 
least  even  of  his  being  run  down  by  some  passing  steamer 
and  drowned,  even  if  he  is  not  overtaken  by  the  armed 
guards  who  patrol  the  shore  in  boats,  or  his  strength  does 
not  give  out. 

This  workhouse  comes  next,  with  the  broken-down 
hordes  from  the  dives,  the  lodging-houses,  and  the  tramps' 
nests,  the  "  hell-box"  *  rather  than  the  repair-shop  of  the 
city.  In  1SS9  the  registry  at  the  workhouse  footed  up 
22,477,  of  whom  some  had  been  there  as  many  as  twenty 
times  before.  It  is  the  popular  summer  resort  of  the 
slums,  but  business  is  brisk  at  this  stand  the  year  round. 
Not  a  few  of  its  patrons  drift  back  periodically  without 
the  formality  of  a  commitment,  to  take  their  chances  on 
the  island  when  there  is  no  escape  from  the  alternative  of 

*  In  printing-offices  the  broken,  worn-out,  and  useless  type  is  thrown 
into  the  "  hell-box,"  to  be  recast  at  the  foundry. 


THE  WRECKS  AND  THE  WASTE. 


work  in  the  city.  Work,  but  not  too  much  work,  is  the 
motto  of  the  establishment.  The  "  workhouse  step  "  is 
an  institution  that  must  be  observed  on  the  island,  in  order 
to  draw  any  comparison  between  it  and  the  snail's  pace 
that  shall  do  justice  to  the  snail.  Xature  and  man's  art 
have  made  these  islands  beautiful ;  but  weeds  grow  lux- 
uriantly in  their  gardens,  and  spiders  spin  their  cobwebs 
unmolested  in  the  borders  of  sweet-smelling  box.  The 
work  which  two  score  of  hired  men  could  do  well  is  too 
much  for  these  thousands. 

Rows  of  old  women,  some  smoking  stumpy,  black  clay- 
pipes,  others  knitting  or  idling,  all  grumbling,  sit  or  stand 
under  the  trees  that  hedge  in  the  almshouse,  or  limp 
about  in  the  sunshine,  leaning  on  crutches  or  bean-pole 
staffs.  They  are  a  "  growler-gang  "  of  another  sort  than 
may  be  seen  in  session  on  the  rocks  of  the  opposite  shore 
at  that  very  moment.  They  grumble  and  growl  from 
sunrise  to  sunset,  at  the  weather,  the  breakfast,  the  din- 
ner, the  supper ;  at  pork  and  beans  as  at  corned  beef  and 
cabbage  ;  at  their  Thanksgiving  dinner  as  at  the  half  ra- 
tions of  the  sick  ward  ;  at  the  past  that  had  no  joy,  at  the 
present  whose  comfort  they  deny,  and  at  the  future  with- 
out promise.  The  crusty  old  men  in  the  next  building; 
are  not  a  circumstance  to  them.  The  warden,  who  was  iiu 
charge  of  the  almshouse  for  many  years,  had  become  so 
snappish  and  profane  by  constant  association  with  a  thou- 
sand cross  old  women  that  I  approached  him  with  some 
misgivings,  to  request  his  permission  to  "  take  "  a  group 
of  a  hundred  or  so  who  were  within  shot  of  my  camera. 
He  misunderstood  me. 

"  Take  them  ?  "  he  yelled.    "  Take  the  thousand  of 

them  and  be  welcome.    They  will  never  be  still,  by  ,. 

till  they  are  sent  up  on  Hart's  Island  in  a  box,  and  I'll  be 
17 


258 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


blamed  if  I  don't  think  they  will  growl  then  at  the  style 
of  the  funeral." 

And  he  threw  his  arms  around  me  in  an  outburst  of 
enthusiasm  over  the  wondrous  good  luck  that  had  sent  a 
friend  indeed  to  his  door.  I  felt  it  to  be  a  painful  duty 
to  undeceive  him.  When  I  told  him  that  I  simply  wanted 
the  old  women's  picture,  he  turned  away  in  speechless 
disgust,  and  to  his  dying  day,  I  have  no  doubt,  remem- 
bered my  call  as  the  day  of  the  champion  fool's  visit  to 
the  island. 

When  it  is  known  that  many  of  these  old  people  have 
been  sent  to  the  almshouse  to  die  by  their  heartless  chil- 
dren, for  whom  they  had  worked  faithfully  as  long  as 
they  were  able,  their  growling  and  discontent  is  not  hard 
to  understand.  Bitter  poverty  threw  them  all  "on  the 
county,"  often  on  the  wTrong  county  at  that.  "Very  many 
of  them  are  old-country  poor,  sent,  there  is  reason  to  be- 
lieve, to  America  by  the  authorities  to  get  rid  of  the 
obligation  to  support  them.  "  The  almshouse,"  wrote  a 
good  missionary,  "  affords  a  sad  illustration  of  St.  Paul's 
description  of  the  '  last  days.'  The  class  from  which  comes 
our  poorhouse  population  is  to  a  large  extent 6  without  natu- 
ral affection.'  "  I  was  reminded  by  his  words  of  what  my 
friend,  the  doctor,  had  said  to  me  a  little  while  before : 
u  Many  a  mother  has  told  me  at  her  child's  death-bed,  '  I 
-cannot  afford  to  lose  it.  It  costs  too  much  to  bury  it.' 
And  when  the  little  one  did  die  there  wras  no  time  for  the 
mother's  grief.  The  question  crowded  on  at  once,  '  where 
shall  the  money  come  from  ? '  ^Natural  feelings  and  af- 
fections are  smothered  in  the  tenements."  The  doctor's 
experience  furnished  a  sadly  appropriate  text  for  the 
priest's  sermon. 

Pitiful  as  these  are,  sights  and  sounds  infinitely  more 


THE  WEECKS  AND  THE  WASTE. 


259 


saddening  await  us  beyond  the  gate  that  shuts  this  world 
of  woe  off  from  one  whence  the  light  of  hope  and  reason 
have  gone  out  together.  The  shuffling  of  many  feet  on 
the  macadamized  roads  heralds  the  approach  of  a  host  of 
women,  hundreds  upon  hundreds— beyond  the  turn  in  the 
road  they  still  keep  coming,  marching  with  the  faltering 
step,  the  unseeing  look  and  the  incessant,  senseless  chatter 
that  betrays  the  darkened  mind.  The  lunatic  women  of 
the  BlackwelFs  Island  Asylum  are  taking  their  afternoon 
walk.  Beyond,  on  the  wide  lawn,  moves  another  still 
stranger  procession,  a  file  of  women  in  the  asylum  dress 
of  dull  gray,  hitched  to  a  queer  little  wagon  that,  with  its 
gaudy  adornments,  suggests  a  cross  between  a  baby-car- 
riage and  a  circus-chariot.  One  crazy  woman  is  strapped 
in  the  seat ;  forty  tug  at  the  rope  to  which  they  are  se- 
curely bound.  This  is  the  "  chain-gang,"  so  called  once 
in  scoffing  ignorance  of  the  humane  purpose  the  contriv- 
ance serves.  These  are  the  patients  afflicted  with  suicidal 
mania,  who  cannot  be  trusted  at  large  for  a  moment  writh 
the  river  i:\  sight,  yet  must  have  their  daily  walk  as  a 
necessary  part  of  their  treatment.  So  this  wagon  was  in- 
vented by  a  clever  doctor  to  afford  them  at  once  exercise 
and  amusement.  A  merry-go-round  in  the  grounds  sug- 
gests a  variation  of  this  scheme.  Ghastly  suggestion  of 
mirth,  with  that  stricken  host  advancing  on  its  aimless 
journey!  As  we  stop  to  see  it  pass,  the  plaintive  strains 
of  a  familiar  song  float  through  a  barred  window  in  the 
gray  stone  building.    The  voice  is  sweet,  but  inexpressibly 

sad:  "Oh,  how  my  heart  grows  weary,  far  from   " 

The  song  breaks  oft'  suddenly  in  a  low,  troubled  laugh. 

She  has  forgotten,  forgotten  .    A  woman  in  the  ranks, 

whose  head  has  been  turned  toward  the  window,  throws 
up  her  hands  with  a  scream.    The  rest  stir  uneasily. 


260 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


The  nurse  is  by  her  side  in  an  instant  with  words  half 
soothing,  half  stern.  A  messenger  comes  in  haste  from 
the  asylum  to  ask  us  not  to  stop.  Strangers  may  not 
linger  where  the  patients  pass.  It  is  apt  to  excite  them. 
As  we  go  in  with  him  the  human  file  is  passing  yet,  quiet 
restored.  The  troubled  voice  of  the  unseen  singer  still 
gropes  vainly  among  the  lost  memories  of  the  past  for  the 
missing  key :  "  Oh !  how  my  heart  grows  weary,  far 

from  " 

"  Who  is  she,  doctor  ?  " 

"Hopeless  case.    She  will  never  see  home  again." 

An  average  of  seventeen  hundred  women  this  asylum 
harbors ;  the  asylum  for  men  up  on  Ward's  Island  even 
more.  Altogether  1,419  patients  were  admitted  to  the 
city  asylums  for  the  insane  in  1889,  and  at  the  end  of 
the  year  4,913  remained  in  them.  There  is  a  constant 
ominous  increase  in  this  class  of  helpless  unfortunates  that 
are  thrown  on  the  city's  charity.  Quite  two  hundred  are 
added  year  by  year,  and  the  asylums  were  long  since  so 
overcrowded  that  a  great  "  farm  "  had  to  be  established 
on  Long  Island  to  receive  the  surplus.  The  strain  of  our 
hurried,  over-worked  life  has  something  to  do  with  this. 
Poverty  ha?  more.  For  these  are  all  of  the  poor.  It  is  the 
harvest  of  sixty  and  a  hundred-fold,  the  "  fearful  rolling 
up  and  rolling  down  from  generation  to  generation,  through 
all  the  ages,  of  the  weakness,  vice,  and  moral  darkness  of 
the  past."  *  The  curse  of  the  island  haunts  all  that  come 
once  within  its  reach.  "  No  man  or  woman,"  says  Dr. 
Louis  L.  Seaman,  who  speaks  from  many  years'  experience 
in  a  position  that  gave  him  full  opportunity  to  observe  the 

*  Dr.  Louis  L.  Seaman,  late  chief  of  staff  of  the  Blackwell's  Island 
hospitals:  "  Social  Waste  of  a  Great  City,'' read  before  the  American 
Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  1886. 


THE  WKECKS  AXD  THE  WASTE. 


261 


facts,  "  who  is  £  sent  up '  to  these  colonies  ever  returns  to 
the  city  scot-free.  There  is  a  lien,  visible  or  hidden,  upon 
his  or  her  present  or  future,  which  too  often  proves 
stronger  than  the  best  purposes  and  fairest  opportunities 
of  social  rehabilitation.  The  under  world  holds  in  ri<>-- 
orous  bondage  every  unfortunate  or  miscreant  who  has 
once  4  served  time.'  There  is  often  tragic  interest  in 
the  struggles  of  the  ensnared  wretches  to  break  away  from 
the  meshes  spun  about  them.  But  the  maelstrom  has  no 
bowels  of  mercy  ;  and  the  would-be  fugitives  are  flung 
back  again  and  again  into  the  devouring  whirlpool  of 
crime  and  poverty,  until  the  end  is  reached  on  the  dissect- 
ing-table,  or  in  the  Potters  Field.  What  can  the  moralist 
or  scientist  do  by  "way  of  resuscitation  ?  Very  little  at 
best.  The  flotsam  and  jetsam  are  mere  shreds  and  frag- 
ments of  wasted  lives.  Such  a  ministry  must  begin  at 
the  sources — is  necessarily  prophylactic,  nutritive,  educa- 
tional. On  these  islands  there  are  no  flexible  twigs,  only 
gnarled,  blasted,  blighted  trunks,  insensible  to  moral  or 
social  influences." 

Sad  words,  but  true.  The  commonest  keeper  soon 
learns  to  pick  out  almost  at  sight  the  "cases"  that  will 
leave  the  penitentiary,  the  workhouse,  the  almshouse, 
only  to  return  again  and  again,  each  time  more  hopeless, 
to  spend  their  wasted  lives  in  the  bondage  of  the  island. 

The  alcoholic  cells  in  Bellevue  Hospital  are  a  way-sta- 
tion for  a  goodly  share  of  them  on  their  journeys  back 
and  forth  across  the  East  River.  Last  year  they  held  al- 
together 3,691  prisoners,  considerably  more  than  one- 
fourth  of  the  whole  number  of  13,813  patients  that  went 
in  through  the  hospital  gates.  The  daily  average  of 
"  cases  "  in  this,  the  hospital  of  the  poor,  is  over  six  hun- 
dred.   The  average  daily  census  of  all  the  prisons,  hospi- 


262 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


tals,  workhouses,  and  asylums  in  the  charge  of  the  De- 
partment of  Charities  and  Correction  last  year  was  about 
14,000,  and  about  one  employee  was  required  for  every  ten 
of  this  army  to  keep  its  machinery  running  smoothly. 
The  total  number  admitted  in  1889  to  all  the  jails  and  in- 
stitutions in  the  city  and  on  the  islands  was  138,332.  To 
the  almshouse  alone  38,600  were  admitted  ;  9,765  were 
there  to  start  the  new  year  with,  and  553  were  born  with 
the  dark  shadow  of  the  poorhouse  overhanging  their 
lives,  making  a  total  of  48,  918.  In  the  care  of  all  their 
wards  the  commissioners  expended  $2,343,372.  The  ap- 
propriation for  the  police  force  in  1889  was  $4,409,550.- 
94,  and  for  the  criminal  courts  and  their  machinery  $403,- 
190.  Thus  the  first  cost  of  maintaining  our  standing  army 
of  paupers,  criminals,  and  sick  poor,  by  direct  taxation,  was 
last  year  $7,156,112.94. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 


THE  MAN  WITH  THE  KNIFE. 

A MAN  stood  at  the  corner  of  Fifth  Avenue  and 
Fourteenth  Street  the  other  day,  looking  gloomily 
at  the  carriages  that  rolled  by,  carrying  the  wealth  and 
fashion  of  the  avenues  to  and  from  the  big  stores  down 
town.  He  was  poor,  and  hungry,  and  ragged.  This 
thought  was  in  his  mind :  u  They  behind  their  well-fed 
teams  have  no  thought  for  the  morrow ;  they  know  hun- 
ger only  by  name,  and  ride  down  to  spend  in  an  hour's 
shopping  what  would  keep  me  and  my  little  ones  from 
want  a  whole  year."  There  rose  up  before  him  the  pict- 
ure of  those  little  ones  crying  for  bread  around  the  cold 
and  cheerless  hearth — then  he  sprang  into  the  throng  and 
slashed  about  him  with  a  knife,  blindly  seeking  to  kill,  to 
revenge. 

The  man  was  arrested,  of  course,  and  locked  up.  To- 
day he  is  probably  in  a  mad-house,  forgotten.  And  the 
carriages  roll  by  to  and  from  the  big  stores  with  their 
gay  throng  of  shoppers.  The  world  forgets  easily,  too 
easily,  what  it  does  not  like  to  remember. 

Nevertheless  the  man  and  his  knife  had  a  mission. 
They  spoke  in  their  ignorant,  impatient  way  the  warning 
one  of  the  most  conservative,  dispassionate  of  public 
bodies  had  sounded  only  a  little  while  before  :  "  Our  only 
fear  is  that  reform  may  come  in  a  burst  of  public  indig- 


26-4 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


nation  destructive  to  property  and  to  good  morals."  * 
They  represented  one  solution  of  the  problem  of  ignor- 
ant poverty  versus  ignorant  wealth  that  has  come  down 
to  us  unsolved,  the  danger-cry  of  which  we  have  lately 
heard  in  the  shout  that  never  should  have  been  raised 
on  American  soil — the  shout  of  "  the  masses  against  the 
classes  " — the  solution  of  violence. 

There  is  another  solution,  that  of  justice.  The  choice 
is  between  the  two.    "Which  shall  it  be  ? 

"  Well !  "  say  some  well-meaning  people  ;  "  we  don't  see 
the  need  of  putting  it  in  that  way.  We  have  been  down 
among  the  tenements,  looked  them  over.  There  are  a 
good  many  people  there ;  they  are  not  comfortable,  per- 
haps. What  would  you  have  ?  They  are  poor.  And 
their  houses  are  not  such  hovels  as  we  have  seen  and  read 
of  in  the  slums  of  the  Old  World.  They  are  decent  in 
comparison.  Why,  some  of  them  have  brown-stone 
fronts.  You  will  own  at  least  that  they  make  a  decent 
show." 

Yes  !  that  is  true.  The  worst  tenements  in  Xew  York 
■do  not,  as  a  rule,  look  bad.  Xeither  Hell's  Kitchen,  nor 
Murderers'  Bow  bears  its  true  character  stamped  on  the 
front.  They  are  not  quite  old  enough,  perhaps.  The 
same  is  true  of  their  tenants.  The  Xew  York  tough  may 
be  ready  to  kill  where  his  London  brother  would  do  little 
more  than  scowl  ;  yet,  as  a  general  thing  he  is  less  re- 
pulsively brutal  in  looks.  Here  again  the  reason  may  be 
the  same :  the  breed  is  not  so  old.  A  few  generations 
more  in  the  shafts,  and  all  that  will  be  changed.  To  get 
at  the  pregnant  facts  of  tenement-house  life  one  must  look 
beneath  the  surface.    Many  an  apple  has  a  fair  skin  and  a 

*  Forty-fourth  Annual  Report  of  the  Association  for  Improving  the 
Condition  of  the  Poor.  1887. 


THE  MAN  WITH  THE  KNIFE. 


265 


rotten  core.  There  is  a  much  better  argument  for  the 
tenements  in  the  assurance  of  the  Registrar  of  Yital 
Statistics  that  the  death-rate  of  these  houses  has  of  late 
been  brought  below  the  general  death-rate  of  the  city,  and 
that  it  is  lowest  in  the  biggest  houses.  This  means  two 
things :  one,  that  the  almost  exclusive  attention  given  to 
the  tenements  by  the  sanitary  authorities  in  twenty  years 
has  borne  some  fruit,  and  that  the  newer  tenements  are 
better  than  the  old — there  is  some  hope  in  that ;  the  other, 
that  the  whole  strain  of  tenement-house  dwellers  has  been 
bred  down  to  the  conditions  under  which  it  exists,  that 
the  struggle  with  corruption  lias  begotten  the  power  to 
resist  it.  This  is  a  familiar  law  of  nature,  necessary  to 
its  first  and  strongest  impulse  of  self-preservation.  To  a 
certain  extent,  we  are  all  creatures  of  the  conditions  that 
surround  us,  physically  and  morally.  But  is  the  knowl- 
edge reassuring?  In  the  light  of  what  we  have  seen,  does 
not  the  question  arise  :  what  sort  of  creature,  then,  this 
of  the  tenement?  I  tried  to  draw  his  likeness  from  ob- 
servation in  telling  the  story  of  the  tough."  Has  it 
nothing  to  suggest  the  man  with  the  knife  ? 

I  will  o-o  further.  I  am  not  willing  even  to  admit  it  to 
be  an  unqualified  advantage  that  ourXew  York  tenements 
have  less  of  the  slum  look  than  those. of  older  cities.  It 
helps  to  delay  the  recognition  of  their  true  character  on 
the  part  of  the  well-meaning,  but  uninstructed,  who  are 
always  in  the  majority. 

The  "  dangerous  classes  "  of  K~ew  York  long  ago  com- 
pelled recognition.  They  are  dangerous  less  because  of 
their  own  crimes  than  because  of  the  criminal  ignorance 
of  those  who  are  not  of  their  kind.  The  danger  to  society 
comes  not  from  the  poverty  of  the  tenements,  but  from 
the  ill-spent  wealth  that  reared  them,  that  it  might  earn  a 


266 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


usurious  interest  from  a  class-  from  which  "  nothing  else 
was  expected.''  That  was  the  broad  foundation  laid 
down,  and  the  edifice  built  upon  it  corresponds  to  the 
groundwork.  That  this  is  well  understood  on  the  "un- 
safe  "  side  of  the  line  that  separates  the  rich  from  the 
poor,  much  better  than  by  those  who  have  all  the  advan- 
tages of  discriminating  education,  is  good  cause  for  dis- 
quietude. In  it  a  keen  foresight  may  again  dimly  discern 
the  shadow  of  the  man  with  the  knife. 

Two  years  ago  a  great  meeting  was  held  at  Chickering 
Hall — I  have  spoken  of  it  before — a  meeting  that  dis- 
cussed for  days  and  nights  the  question  how  to  banish 
this  spectre ;  how  to  lay  hold  with  good  influences  of  this 
enormous  mass  of  more  than  a  million  people,  who  were 
drifting  away  faster  and  faster  from  the  safe  moorings 
of  the  old  faith.  Clergymen  and  laymen  from  all  the 
Protestant  denominations  took  part  in  the  discussion  ;  nor 
was  a  good  word  forgotten  for  the  brethren  of  the  other 
great  Christian  fold  who  labor  among  the  poor.  Much 
was  said  that  was  good  and  true,  and  ways  were  found  of 
reaching  the  spiritual  needs  of  the  tenement  population 
that  promise  success.  But  at  no  time  throughout  the  con- 
ference was  the  real  key-note  of  the  situation  so  boldly 
struck  as  has  been  done  by  a  few  far-seeing  business 
men,  who  had  listened  to  the  cry  of  that  Christian  builder : 
"  How  shall  the  love  of  God  be  understood  by  those  who 
have  been  nurtured  in  sight  only  of  the  greed  of  man  ?  " 
Their  practical  programme  of  "  Philanthropy  and  five 
per  cent."  has  oet  examples  in  tenement  building  that 
show,  though  they  are  yet  few  and  scattered,  what  may 
in  time  be  accomplished  even  with  such  poor  opportu- 
nities as  New  York  offers  to-day  of  undoing  the  old 
wrong.    This  is  the  gospel  of  justice,  the  solution  that 


THE  MAN  WITH  THE  KNIFE. 


267 


must  be  sought  as  the  one  alternative  to  the  man  with 
the  knife. 

"Are  you  not  looking  too  much  to  the  material  condi- 
tion of  these  people,"  said  a  good  minister  to  me  after  a 
lecture  in  a  Harlem  church  last  winter,  "  and  forgetting 
the  inner  man?"  I  told  him,  "2\o!  for  you  cannot 
expect  to  find  an  inner  man  to  appeal  to  in  the  worst 
tenement-house  surroundings.  You  must  first  put  the 
man  where  he  can  respect  himself.  To  reverse  the  argu- 
ment of  the  apple  :  you  cannot  expect  to  find  a  sound 
core  in  a  rotten  fruit." 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 


WHAT  HAS  BEEN  DOXE. 

IX  twenty  years  what  has  been  done  in  Xew  York  to 
solve  the  tenement-house  problem  ? 
The  law  has  done  what  it  could.  That  was  not  always 
a  great  deal,  seldom  more  than  barely  sufficient  for  the 
moment.  An  aroused  municipal  conscience  endowed  the 
Health  Department  with  almost  autocratic  powers  in 
dealing  with  this  subject,  but  the  desire  to  educate  rather 
than  force  the  community  into  a  better  way  dictated  their 
exercise  with  a  slow  conservatism  that  did  not  always 
seem  wise  to  the  impatient  reformer.  Xew  York  has  its 
St.  Antoine,  and  it  has  often  sadly  missed  a  Xapoleon  III. 
to  clean  up  and  make  light  in  the  dark  corners.  The  ob- 
stacles, too,  have  been  many  and  great.  Xevertheless  the 
authorities  have  not  been  idle,  though  it  is  a  grave  ques- 
tion whether  all  the  improvements  made  under  the  sani- 
tary regulations  of  recent  years  deserve  the  name.  Tene- 
ments quite  as  bad  as  the  worst  are  too  numerous  yet ; 
but  one  tremendous  factor  for  evil  in  the  lives  of  the 
poor  has  been  taken  by  the  throat,  and  something  has 
unquestionably  been  done,  where  that  was  possible,  to 
lift  those  lives  out  of  the  rut  where  they  were  equally 
beyond  the  reach  of  hope  and  of  ambition.  It  is  no 
longer  lawful  to  construct  barracks  to  cover  the  whole  of 
a  lot.  Air  and  sunlight  have  a  legal  claim,  and  the  day 
of  rear  tenements  is  past.    Two  years  ago  a  hundred 


WHAT  HAS  BEE2T  DOXE. 


269 


thousand  people  burrowed  in  these  inhuman  dens;  but 
some  have  been  torn  down  since.  Their  number  will 
decrease  steadily  until  they 
shall  have  become  a  bad  tra- 
dition of  a  heedless  past. 
The  dark,  unventilated  bed- 
room is  going  with  them,  and 


 29-ft-  

Old  Style  Tenement. 


Single  Lot  Tenement  of  To-day. 

EVOLUTION  OF  THE  TENEMENT  IN  TWENTT  TEARS. 


the  open  sewer.  The  day  is  at  hand  when  the  greatest 
of  all  evils  that  now  curse  life  in  the  tenements — the 
dearth  of  water  in  the  hot  summer  days — will  also  have 


270 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


been  remedied,  and  a  long  step  taken  toward  the  moral 
and  physical  redemption  of  their  tenants. 

Public  sentiment  has  done  something  also,  but  very 
far  from  enough.  As  a  rule,  it  has  slumbered  peacefully 
until  some  flagrant  outrage  on  decency  and  the  health  of 
the  community  aroused  it  to  noisy  but  ephemeral  indigna- 
tion, or  until  a  dreaded  epidemic  knocked  at  our  door. 
It  is  this  unsteadiness  of  purpose  that  has  been  to  a  large 
extent  responsible  for  the  apparent  lagging  of  the  author- 
ities in  cases  not  involving  immediate  danger  to  the  gen- 
eral health.  The  law  needs  a  much  stronger  and  readier 
backing  of  a  thoroughly  enlightened  public  sentiment  to 
make  it  as  effective  as  it  might  be  made.  It  is  to  be  re- 
membered that  the  health  officers,  in  dealing  with  this 
subject  of  dangerous  houses,  are  constantly  trenching  upon 
what  each  landlord  considers  his  private  rights,  for  which 
he  is  ready  and  bound  to  fight  to  the  last.  Nothing  short 
of  the  strongest  pressure  will  avail  to  convince  him  that 
these  individual  rights  are  to  be  surrendered  for  the  clear 
benefit  of  the  whole.  It  is  easy  enough  to  convince  a  man 
that  he  ought  not  to  harbor  the  thief  who  steals  people's 
property ;  but  to  make  him  see  that  he  has  no  right  to 
slowly  kill  his  neighbors,  or  his  tenants,  by  making  a 
death-trap  of  his  house,  seems  to  be  the  hardest  of  all 
tasks.  It  is  apparently  the  slowness  of  the  process  that 
obscures  his  mental  sight.  The  man  who  will  fight  an 
order  to  repair  the  plumbing  in  his  house  through  every 
court  he  can  reach,  would  suffer  tortures  rather  than  shed 
the  blood  of  a  fellow-man  by  actual  violence.  Clearly,  it 
is  a  matter  of  education  on  the  part  of  the  landlord  no 
less  than  the  tenant. 

In  spite  of  this,  the  landlord  has  done  his  share ;  chief- 
ly perhaps  by  yielding — not  always  gracefully — when  it 


WHAT  HAS  BEEN  DONE. 


271 


was  no  longer  of  any  use  to  fight.  There  have  been  ex- 
ceptions, however :  men  and  women  who  have  mended 
and  built  with  an  eve  to  the  real  welfare  of  their  tenants 
as  well  as  to  their  own  pockets.  Let  it  be  well  understood 
that  the  two  are  inseparable,  if  any  good  is  to  come  of  it. 
The  business  of  housing  the  poor,  if  it  is  to  amount  to 
anything,  must  be  business,  as  it  was  business  with  our 
fathers  to  put  them  where  they  are.  As  charity,  pastime, 
or  fad,  it  will  miserably  fail,  always  and  everywhere. 
This  is  an  inexorable  rule,  now  thoroughly  well  under- 
stood in  England  and  continental  Europe,  and  by  all  who 
have  given  the  matter  serious  thought  here.  Call  it  po- 
etic justice,  or  divine  justice,  or  anything  else,  it  is  a  hard 
fact,  not  to  be  gotten  over.  Upon  any  other  plan  than 
the  assumption  that  the  workman  has  a  just  claim  to  a 
decent  home,  and  the  right  to  demand  it,  any  scheme  for 
his  relief  fails.  It  must  be  a  fair  exchange  of  the  man's 
money  for  what  he  can  afford  to  buy  at  a  reasonable 
price.  Any  charity  scheme  merely  turns  him  into  a  pau- 
per, however  it  may  be  disguised,  and  drowns  him  hope- 
lessly in  the  mire  out  of  which  it  proposed  to  pull  him. 
And  this  principle  must  pervade  the  whole  plan.  Expert 
management  of  model  tenements  succeeds  where  ama- 
teur  management,  with  the  best  intentions,  gives  up  the 
task,  discouraged,  as  a  flat  failure.  Some  of  the  best-con- 
ceived enterprises,  backed  by  abundant  capital  and  good- 
will, have  been  wrecked  on  this  rock.  Sentiment,  having 
prompted  the  effort,  forgot  to  stand  aside  and  let  business 
make  it. 

Business,  in  a  wider  sense,  has  done  more  than  all  other 
agencies  together  to  wipe  out  the  worst  tenements.  It  has 
been  New  York's  real  Napoleon  III.,  from  whose  decree 
there  was  no  appeal.    In  ten  years  I  have  seen  plague- 


272 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


spots  disappear  before  its  onward  march,  with  which 
health  officers,  police,  and  sanitary  science  had  struggled 
vainly  since  such  struggling  began  as  a  serious  business. 
And  the  process  goes  on  still.  Unfortunately,  the  crowd- 
ing in  some  of  the  most  densely  packed  quarters  down 
town  has  made  the  property  there  so  valuable,  that  relief 
from  this  source  is  less  confidently  to  be  expected,  at  all 
events  in  the  near  future.  Still,  their  time  may  come 
also.  It  comes  so  quickly  sometimes  as  to  fairly  take 
one's  breath  away.  More  than  once  I  have  returned,  after 
a  few  brief  weeks,  to  some  specimen  rookery  in  which  I 
was  interested,  to  find  it  gone  and  an  army  of  workmen 
delving  twenty  feet  underground  to  lay  the  foundation  of 
a  mighty  warehouse.  That  was  the  case  with  the  "  Big 
Flat "  in  Mott  Street.  I  had  not  had  occasion  to  visit  it 
for  several  months  last  winter,  and  when  I  went  there, 
entirely  unprepared  for  a  change,  I  could  not  find  it.  It 
had  always  been  conspicuous  enough  in  the  landscape  be- 
fore, and  I  marvelled  much  at  my  own  stupidity  until,  by 
examining  the  number  of  the  house,  I  found  out  that  I 
had  gone  right.  It  was  the  "  flat  "  that  had  disappeared. 
In  its  place  towered  a  six-story  carriage  factory  with  busi- 
ness going  on  on  every  floor,  as  if  it  had  been  there  for 
years  and  years. 

This  same  'v  Big  Flat  "  furnished  a  good  illustration  of 
why  some  well-meant  efforts  in  tenement  building  have 
failed.  Like  Gotham  Court,  it  was  originally  built  as  a 
model  tenement,  but  speedily  came  to  rival  the  Court  in 
foulness.  It  became  a  regular  hot-bed  of  thieves  and 
peace-breakers,  and  made  no  end  of  trouble  for  the  police. 
The  immediate  reason,  outside  of  the  lack  of  proper  su- 
pervision, was  that  it  had  open  access  to  two  streets  in 
a  neighborhood  where  thieves  and  "  toughs  "  abounded. 


WHAT  HAS  BEEX  DOXE. 


273 


These  took  advantage  of  an  arrangement  that  had  been 
supposed  by  the  builders  to  be  a  real  advantage  as  a 
means  of  ventilation,  and  their  occupancy  drove  honest 
folk  away.  Murderers'  Alley,  of  which  I  have  spoken 
elsewhere,  and  the  sanitary  inspector's  experiment  with 
building  a  brick  wall  athwart  it  to  shut  off  travel  through 
the  block,  is  a  parallel  case. 

The  causes  that  operate  to  obstruct  efforts  to  better 
the  lot  of  the  tenement  population  are,  in  our  day,  large 
ly  found  among  the  tenants  themselves.  This  is  true 
particularly  of  the  poorest.  They  are  shiftless,  destruc- 
tive, and  stupid  ;  in  a  word,  they  are  what  the  tene- 
ments have  made  them.  It  is  a  dreary  old  truth  that 
those  who  would  fight  for  the  poor  must  fight  the  poor  to 
do  it.  It  must  be  confessed  that  there  is  little  enough  in 
their  past  experience  to  inspire  confidence  in  the  sincerity 
of  the  effort  to  help  them.  I  recall  the  discomfiture  of  a 
certain  well-known  philanthropist,  since  deceased,  whose 
heart  beat  responsive  to  other  suffering  than  that  of  hu- 
man kind.  lie  was  a  large  owner  of  tenement  property, 
and  once  undertook*  to  fit  out  his  houses  with  stationary 
tubs,  sanitary  plumbing,  wood-closets,  and  all  the  latest 
improvements.  lie  introduced  his  rough  tenants  to  all 
this  magnificence  without  taking  the  precaution  of  pro- 
viding a  competent  housekeeper,  to  see  that  the  new  ac- 
quaintances got  on  together.  lie  felt'  that  his  tenants, 
ought  to  be  grateful  for  the  interest  he  took  in  them.. 
They  were.  They  found  the  boards  in  the  wood-closets 
fine  kindling  wood,  while  the  pipes  and  faucets  were  as 
good  as  cash  at  the  junk  shop.  In  three  months  the 
owner  had  to  remove  what  was  left  of  his  improvements. 
The  pipes  were  cut  and  the  houses  running  full  of  water, 
the  stationary  tubs  were  put  to  all  sorts  of  uses  except 
13 


274  HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


washing,  and  of  the  wood-closets  not  a  trace  was  left. 
The  philanthropist  was  ever  after  a  firm  believer  in  the 
total  depravity  of  tenement-house  people.  Others  have 
been  led  to  like  reasoning  by  as  plausible  arguments,  with- 
out discovering  that  the  shiftlessness  and  ignorance  that 
offended  them  were  the  consistent  crop  of  the  tenement 
they  were  trying  to  reform,  and  had  to  be  included  in  the 
effort.  The  owners  of  a  block  of  model  tenements  up- 
town had  got  their  tenants  comfortably  settled,  and  were 
indulging  in  high  hopes  of  their  redemption  under  proper 
management,  when  a  contractor  ran  up  a  row  of  "  skin  " 
tenements,  shaky  but  fair  to  look  at,  with  brown-stone 
trimmings  and  gewgaws.  The  result  was  to  tempt  a  lot 
of  the  well-housed  tenants  away.  It  was  a  very  astonish- 
ing instance  of  perversity  to  the  planners  of  the  benevo- 
lent scheme  ;  but,  after  all,  there  was  nothing  strange  in  it. 
It  is  all  a  matter  of  education,  as  I  said  about  the  landlord. 

That  the  education  comes  slowly  need  excite  no  sur- 
prise. The  forces  on  the  other  side  are  ever  active.  The 
faculty  of  the  tenement  for  appropriating  to  itself  every 
foul  thing  that  comes  within  its  reach,  and  piling  up  and 
intensifying  its  corruption  until  out  of  all  proportion  to 
the  beginning,  is  something  marvellous.  Drop  a  case  of 
scarlet  fever,  of  measles,  or  of  diphtheria  into  one  of  these 
barracks,  and,  unless  it  is  caught  at  the  very  start  and 
stamped  out,  the  contagion  of  the  one  case  will  sweep 
block  after  block,  and  half  people  a  graveyard.  Let  the 
police  break  up  a  vile  dive,  goaded  by  the  angry  protests 
of  the  neighborhood — forthwith  the  outcasts  set  in  circu- 
lation by  the  vaid  betake  themselves  to  the  tenements, 
where  in  their  hired  rooms,  safe  from  interference,  they 
set  up  as  many  independent  centres  of  contagion,  infinite- 
ly more  destructive,  each  and  every  one,  than  was  the 


WHAT  HAS  BEEN  DONE. 


275 


known  dive  before.  I  am  not  willing  to  affirm  that  this 
is  the  police  reason  for  letting  so  many  of  the  dives  alone  ; 
but  it  might  well  be.  They  are  perfectly  familiar  with 
the  process,  and  entirely  helpless  to  prevent  it. 

This  faculty,  as  inherent  in  the  problem  itself — the  pro- 
digious increase  of  the  tenement-house  population  that 
goes  on  without  cessation,  and  its  consequent  greater 
crowding — is  the  chief  obstacle  to  its  solution.  In  1S69 
there  were  14,S72  tenements  in  Xew  York,  with  a  popu- 
lation of  468,492  persons.  In  1879  the  number  of  the 
tenements  was  estimated  at  21,000,  and  their  tenants  had 
passed  the  half-million  mark.  At  the  end  of  the  year 
1S88,  when  a  regular  census  was  made  for  the  first  time 
since  1869,  the  showing  was  :  32,390  tenements,  with  a 
population  of  1,093,701  souls.  To-day  we  have  37,316 
tenements,  including  2,630  rear  houses,  and  their  popula- 
tion is  over  1,250,000.  A  large  share  of  this  added  popu- 
lation, especially  of  that  which  came  to  us  from  abroad, 
crowds  in  below  Fourteenth  Street,  where  the  population 
is  already  packed  beyond  reason,  and  confounds  all  at- 
tempts to  make  matters  better  there.  At  the  same  time 
new  slums  are  constantly  growing  up  uptown,  and  have  to 
be  kept  down  with  a  firm  hand.  This  drift  of  the  popu- 
lation to  the  great  cities  has  to  be  taken  into  account  as  a 
steady  factor.  It  will  probably  increase  rather  than  de- 
crease for  many  years  to  come.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
century  the  percentage  of  our  population  that  lived  in 
cities  was  as  one  in  twenty -five.  In  1880  it  was  one  in 
four  and  one-half,  and  in  1S90  the  census  will  in  all  prob- 
ability show  it  to  be  one  in  four.  Against  such  tenden- 
cies, in  the  absence  of  suburban  outlets  for  the  crowding 
masses,  all  remedial  measures  must  prove  more  or  less 
ineffective.     The  "confident  belief"  expressed  by  the 


276 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


Board  of  Health  in  1874,  that  rapid  transit  would  solve 
the  problem,  is  now  known  to  have  been  a  vain  hope. 

Workingmen,  in  New  York  at  all  events,  will  live  near 
their  work,  no  matter  at  what  sacrifice  of  comfort — one 
might  almost  say  at  whatever  cost,  and  the  city  will  never 
be  less  crowded  than  it  is.  To  distribute  the  crowds  as 
evenly  as  possible  is  the  effort  of  the  authorities,  where 
nothing  better  can  be  done.  In  the  first  six  months  of 
the  present  year  1,068  persons  were  turned  out  of  not  quite 
two  hundred  tenements  below  Houston  Street  by  the 
sanitary  police  on  their  midnight  inspections,  and  this 
covered  only  a  very  small  part  of  that  field.  The  uptown 
tenements  were  practically  left  to  take  care  of  themselves 
in  this  respect. 

The  quick  change  of  economic  conditions  in  the  city  that 
often  out-paces  all  plans  of  relief,  rendering  useless  to-day 
what  met  the  demands  of  the  situation  well  enough  yes- 
terday, is  another  cause  of  perplexity.  A  common  obstacle 
also — I  am  inclined  to  think  quite  as  common  as  in  Ire- 
land, though  we  hear  less  of  it  in  the  newspapers — is  the 
absentee  landlord.  The  home  article,  who  fights  for  his 
rights,  as  he  chooses  to  consider  them,  is  bad  enough ; 
but  the  absentee  landlord  is  responsible  for  no  end  of 
trouble.  He  was  one  of  the  first  obstructions  the  sanitary 
reformers  stumbled  over,  when  the  Health  Department 
took  hold.  It  reported  in  1869  that  many  of  the  tenants 
were  entirely  uncared  for,  and  that  the  only  answer  to 
their  requests  to  have  the  houses  put  in  order  was  an  in- 
vitation to  pay  their  rent  or  get  out.  "  Inquiry  often  dis- 
closed the  fajt  that  the  owner  of  the  property  was  a 
wealthy  gentleman  or  lady,  either  living  in  an  aristocratic 
part  of  the  city,  or  in  a  neighboring  city,  or,  as  was  occa- 
sionally found  to  be  the  case,  in  Europe.    The  property  is 


WHAT  HAS  BEEN  DONE. 


277 


usually  managed  entirely  by  an  agent,  whose  instructions 
are  simple  but  emphatic:  Collect  the  rent  in  advance, 
or,  failing,  eject  the  occupants/'  The  Committee  having 
the  matter  in  charge  proposed  to  compel  owners  of  tene- 
ments with  ten  families  or  more  to  put  a  housekeeper  in 
the  house,  who  should  be  held  responsible  to  the  Health 
Department.  Unluckily  the  powers  of  the  Board  gave  out 
at  that  point,  and  the  proposition  was  never  acted  upon. 
Could  it  have  been,  much  trouble  would  have  been  spared 
the  Health  Board,  and  untold  suffering  the  tenants  in 
many  houses.  The  tribe  of  absentee  landlords  is  by  no 
means  extinct  in  New  York.  Xot  a  few  who  fled  from 
across  the  sea  to  avoid  being  crushed  by  his  heel  there 
have  groaned  under  it  here,  scarcely  profiting  by  the  ex- 
change. Sometimes — it  can  hardly  be  said  in  extenua- 
tion— the  heel  that  crunches  is  applied  in  saddening  ig- 
norance. I  recall  the  angry  indignation  of  one  of  these 
absentee  landlords,  a  worthy  man  who,  living  faraway  in 
the  country,  had  inherited  city  property,  when  he  saw  the 
condition  of  his  slum  tenements.  The  man  was  shocked 
beyond  expression,  all  the  more  because  he  did  not  know 
whom  to  blame  except  himself  for  the  state  of  things  that 
had  aroused  his  wrath,  and  yet,  conscious  of  the  integrity 
of  his  intentions,  felt  that  he  should  not  justly  be  held 
responsible. 

The  experience  of  this  landlord  points  directly  to  the 
remedy  which  the  law  failed  to  supply  to  the  early  re- 
formers. It  has  since  been  fully  demonstrated  that  a  com- 
petent agent  on  the  premises,  a  man  of  the  best  and  the 
highest  stamp,  who  knows  how  to  instruct  and  guide  with 
a  firm  hand,  is  a  prerequisite  to  the  success  of  any  reform 
tenement  scheme.  This  is  a  plain  business  proposition, 
that  has  been  proved  entirely  sound  in  some  notable  in- 


278 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


stances  of  tenement  building,  of  which  more  hereafter. 
Even  among  the  poorer  tenements,  those  are  always  the 
best  in  which  the  owner  himself  lives.  It  is  a  hopeful 
sign  in  any  case.  The  difficulty  of  procuring  such  assist- 
ance without  having  to  pay  a  ruinous  price,  is  one  of  the 
obstructions  that  have  vexed  in  this  city  efforts  to  solve  the 
problem  of  housing  the  poor  properly,  because  it  presup- 
poses that  the  effort  must  be  made  on  a  larger  scale  than 
has  often  been  attempted. 

The  readiness  with  which  the  tenants  respond  to  intelli- 
gent efforts  in  their  behalf,  when  made  under  fair  condi- 
tions, is  as  surprising  as  it  is  gratifying,  and  fully  proves 
the  claim  that  tenants  are  only  satisfied  in  filthy  and  un- 
wholesome surroundings  because  nothing  better  is  offered. 
The  moral  effect  is  as  great  as  the  improvement  of  their 
physical  health.  It  is  clearly  discernible  in  the  better 
class  of  tenement  dwellers  to-day.  The  change  in  the 
character  of  the  colored  population  in  the  few  years  since 
it  began  to  move  out  of  the  wicked  rookeries  of  the  old 
"Africa  "  to  the  decent  tenements  in  Yorkville,  furnishes 
a  notable  illustration,  and  a  still  better  one  is  found  in  the 
contrast  between  the  model  tenement  in  the  Mulberry 
Street  Bend  and  the  barracks  across  the  way,  of  which  I 
spoke  in  tho  chapter  devoted  to  the  Italian.  The  Italian 
himself  is  the  strongest  argument  of  all.  With  his  fatal  con- 
tentment in  the  filthiest  surroundings,  he  gives  undoubted 
evidence  of  having  in  him  the  instinct  of  cleanliness  that, 
properly  cultivated,  would  work  his  rescue  in  a  very  little 
while.  It  is  a  queer  contradiction,  but  the  fact  is  patent 
to  anyone  who  has  observed  the  man  in  his  home-life. 
And  he  is  not  alone  in  this.  I  came  across  an  instance, 
tin's  past  summer,  of  how  a  refined,  benevolent  personal- 
ity works  like  a  leaven  in  even  the  roughest  tenement- 


WHAT  HAS  BEEX  DOXE. 


279 


Louse  crowd.  This  was  no  model  tenement ;  far  from  it. 
It  was  a  towering  barrack  in  the  Tenth  Ward,  sheltering 
more  than  twenty  families.  All  the  light  and  air  that  en- 
tered its  interior  came  through  an  air-shaft  two  feet  square, 
upon  which  two  bedrooms  and  the  hall  gave  in  every  story. 
In  three  years  I  had  known  of  two  domestic  tragedies, 
prompted  by  poverty  and  justifiable  disgust  with  life,  oc- 
curring in  the  house,  and  had  come  to  look  upon  it  as  a 
typically  bad  tenement,  quite  beyond  the  pale  of  possible 
improvement.  What  was  my  surprise,  when  chance  led 
me  to  it  once  more  after  a  while,  to  find  the  character  of 
the  occupants  entirely  changed.  Some  of  the  old  ones 
were  there  still,  but  they  did  not  seem  to  be  the  same 
people.  I  discovered  the  secret  to  be  the  new  house- 
keeper, a  tidy,  mild-mannered,  but  exceedingly  strict  little 
body,  who  had  a  natural  faculty  of  drawing  her  depraved 
surroundings  within  the  beneficent  sphere  of  her  strong, 
sympathy,  and  withal  of  exacting  respect  for  her  orders. 
The  worst  elements  had  been  banished  from  the  house  in 
short  order  under  her  management,  and  for  the  rest  a  new 
era  of  self-respect  had  dawned.  They  were,  as  a  body,  as 
vastly  superior  to  the  general  run  of  their  class  as  they 
had  before  seemed  below  it.  And  this  had  been  effected 
in  the  short  space  of  a  single  year. 

My  observations  on  this  point  are  more  than  confirmed 
by  those  of  nearly  all  the  practical  tenement  reformers  I 
have  known,  who  have  patiently  held  to  the  course  they 
had  laid  down.  One  of  these,  whose  experience  exceeds 
that  of  all  of  the  rest  together,  and  whose  influence  for 
good  has  been  very  great,  said  to  me  recently  :  a  I  hold 
that  not  ten  per  cent,  of  the  people  now  living  in  tenements 
would  refuse  to  avail  themselves  of  the  best  improved  con- 
ditions offered,  and  come  fully  up  to  the  use  of  them,  prop- 


280 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


erly  instructed  ;  but  they  cannot  get  them.  They  are  up 
to  them  now,  fully,  if  the  chances  were  only  offered.  They 
don't  have  to  come  up.  It  is  all  a  gigantic  mistake  on  the 
part  of  the  public,  of  which  these  poor  people  are  the  vic- 
tims. I  have  built  homes  for  more  than  five  hundred  fam- 
ilies in  fourteen  years,  and  I  have  been  getting  daily  more 
faith  in  human  nature  from  my  work  among  the  poor  ten- 
ants, though  approaching  that  nature  on  a  plane  and  under 
conditions  that  could  scarcely  promise  better  for  disap- 
pointment." It  is  true  that  my  friend  has  built  his  houses 
in  Brooklyn ;  but  human  nature  does  not  differ  greatly  on 
the  two  shores  of  the  East  River.  For  those  who  think  it 
does,  it  may  be  well  to  remember  that  only  five  years  ago 
the  Tenement  House  Commission  summed  up  the  situa- 
tion in  this  city  in  the  declaration  that,  "the  condition  of 
the  tenants  is  in  advance  of  the  houses  which  they  oc- 
cupy," quite  the  severest  arraignment  of  the  tenement 
that  had  yet  been  uttered. 

The  many  philanthropic  efforts  that  have  been  made  in 
the  last  few  years  to  render  less  intolerable  the  lot  of  the 
tenants  in  the  homes  where  many  of  them  must  continue 
to  live,  have  undoubtedly  had  their  effect  in  creating  a  dis- 
position to  accept  better  things,  that  will  make  plainer 
sailing  for  future  builders  of  model  tenements.  In  many 
ways,  as  in  the  "College  Settlement"  of  courageous  girls, 
the  Neighborhood  Guilds,  through  the  efforts  of  the  King's 
Daughters,  and  numerous  other  schemes  of  practical  mis- 
sion work,  the  poor  and  the  well-to-do  have  been  brought 
closer  together,  in  an  every-day  companionship  that  cannot 
but  be  productive  of  the  best  results,  to  the  one  who  gives 
no  less  than  to  the  one  who  receives.  And  thus,  as  a  good 
lady  wrote  to  me  once,  though  the  problem  stands  yet 
unsolved,  more  perplexing  than  ever  ;  though  the  bright 


WHAT  HAS  BEEN  DONE. 


281 


spots  in  the  dreary  picture  be  too  often  bright  only  by 
comparison,  and  many  of  the  expedients  hit  upon  for  re- 
lief sad  makeshifts,  we  can  dimly  discern  behind  it  all 
that  good  is  somehow  working  out  of  even  this  slough  of 
despond  the  while  it  is  deepening  and  widening  in  our 
sight,  and  in  His  own  good  season,  if  we  labor  on  with 
courage  and  patience,  will  bear  fruit  sixty  and  a  hundred 
fold. 


CHAPTER  XXY. 


HOW  THE  CASE  STANDS. 

WHAT,  then,  are  the  bald  facts  with  which  we  have 
to  deal  in  New  York  ? 

I.  That  we  have  a  tremendous,  ever  swelling  crowd  of 
wage-earners  which  it  is  our  business  to  house  decently. 

II.  That  it  is  not  housed  decently. 

III.  That  it  must  be  so  housed  here  for  the  present,  and 
for  a  long  time  to  come,  all  schemes  of  suburban  relief 
being  as  yet  Utopian,  impracticable. 

IV.  That  it  pays  high  enough  rents  to  entitle  it  to  be 
so  housed,  as  a  right. 

Y.  That  nothing  but  our  own  slothf  ulness  is  in  the  way 
of  so  housing  it,  since  "  the  condition  of  the  tenants  is  in 
advance  of  the  condition  of  the  houses  which  they  occupy  " 
(Report  of  Tenement-house  Commission). 

YI.  That  the  security  of  the  one  no  less  than  of  the 
other  half  demands,  on  sanitary,  moral,  and  economic 
grounds,  that  it  be  decently  housed. 

YII.  That  it  will  pay  to  do  it.  As  an  investment,  I 
mean,  and  in  hard  cash.  This  I  shall  immediately  pro- 
ceed to  prove. 

YIII.  That  the  tenement  has  come  to  stay,  and  must  it- 
self be  the  solution  of  the  problem  with  which  it  confronts 
us. 

This  is  the  fact  from  which  we  cannot  get  away,  how- 
ever we  may  deplore  it.    Doubtless  the  best  would  be  to 


HOW  THE  CASE  STANDS. 


283 


get  rid  of  it  altogether ;  but  as  we  cannot,  all  argument 
on  that  score  may  at  this  time  be  dismissed  as  idle.  The 
practical  question  is  what  to  do  with  the  tenement.  I 
watched  a  Mott  Street  landlord,  the  owner  of  a  row  of 
barracks  that  have  made  no  end  of  trouble  for  the  health 
authorities  for  twenty  years,  solve  that  question  for  him- 
self the  other  day.  His  way  was  to  give  the  wretched 
pile  a  coat  of  paint,  and  put  a  gorgeous  tin  cornice  on  with 
the  year  1890  in  letters  a  yard  long.  From  where  I  stood 
watching  the  operation,  I  looked  down  upon  the  same 
dirty  crowds  camping  on  the  roof,  foremost  among  them 
an  Italian  mother  with  two  stark-naked  children  who  had 
apparently  never  made  the  acquaintance  of  a  wash-tub. 
That  was  a  landlord's  way,  and  will  not  get  us  out  of  the 
mire. 

The  "flat"  is  another  way  that  does  not  solve  the  prob- 
lem. Rather,  it  extends  it.  The  flat  is  not  a  model, 
though  it  is  a  modern,  tenement.  It  gets  rid  of  some  of 
the  nuisances  of  the  low  tenement,  and  of  the  worst  of 
them,  the  overcrowding — if  it  gets  rid  of  them  at  all — at 
a  cost  that  takes  it  at  once  out  of  the  catalogue  of  "  homes 
for  the  poor,"  while  imposing  some  of  the  evils  from 
which  they  suffer  upon  those  who  ought  to  escape  from 
them. 

There  are  three  effective  ways  of  dealing  with  the  tene-  ' 
ments  in  Xew  York  : 

I.  By  law. 

II.  By  remodelling  and  making  the  most  out  of  the  old 
houses. 

III.  By  building  new,  model  tenements. 

Private  enterprise— conscience,  to  put  it  in  the  category 
of  duties,  where  it  belongs— must  do  the  lion's  share  un- 
der these  last  two  heads.    Of  what  the  law  has  effected  I 


284 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


have  spoken  already.  The  drastic  measures  adopted  in 
Paris,  in  Glasgow,  and  in  London  are  not  practicable  here 
on  anything  like  as  large  a  scale.  Still  it  can,  under 
strong  pressure  of  public  opinion,  rid  us  of  the  worst 
plague-spots.  The  Mulberry  Street  Bend  will  go  the  way 
of  the  Five  Points  when  all  the  red  tape  that  binds  the 
hands  of  municipal  effort  has  been  unwound.  Prizes  were 
offered  in  public  competition,  some  years  ago,  for  the  best  i 
plans  of  modern  tenement-houses.  It  may  be  that  we 
shall  see  the  day  when  the  building  of  model  tenements 
will  be  encouraged  by  subsidies  in  the  way  of  a  rebate  of 
taxes.  Meanwhile  the  arrest  and  summary  punishment 
of  landlords,  or  their  agents,  who  persistently  violate  law 
and  decency,  will  have  a  salutary  effect.  If  a  few  of  the 
wealthy  absentee  landlords,  who  are  the  worst  offenders, 
could  be  got  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  city,  and  by  ar- 
rest be  compelled  to  employ  proper  overseers,  it  would  be 
a  proud  day  for  Xew  York.  To  remedy  the  overcrowd- 
ing, with  which  the  night  inspections  of  the  sanitary 
police  cannot  keep  step,  tenements  may  eventually  have  to 
be  licensed,  as  now  the  lodging-houses,  to  hold  so  many 
tenants,  and  no  more  ;  or  the  State  may  have  to  bring  down 
the  rents  that  cause  the  crowding,  by  assuming  the  right 
to  regulate  them  is  it  regulates  the  fares  on  the  elevated 
roads.  I  throw  out  the  suggestion,  knowing  quite  well 
that  it  is  open  to  attack.  It  emanated  originally  from  one 
of  the  brightest  minds  that  have  had  to  struggle  officially 
with  this  tenement-house  question  in  the.  last  ten  years. 
In  any  event,  to  succeed,  reform  by  law  must  aim  at  mak- 
ing it  unprofitable  to  own  a  bad  tenement.  At  best,  it  is 
apt  to  travel  at  a  snail's  pace,  while  the  enemy  it  pursues 
is  putting  the  best  foot  foremost. 

In  this  matter  of  profit  the  law  ought  to  have  its  strong- 


HOW  THE  CASE  STANDS. 


285 


est  ally  in  the  landlord  himself,  though  the  reverse  is  the 
case.  This  condition  of  things  I  believe  to  rest  on  a  mon- 
strous error.  It  cannot  be  that  tenement  property  that  is 
worth  preserving  at  all  can  continue  to  yield  larger  returns, 
if  allowed  to  run  down,  than  if  properly  cared  for  and  kept 
in  good  repair.  The  point  must  be  reached,  and  soon,  where 
the  cost  of  repairs,  necessary  with  a  house  full  of  the  lowest, 
most  ignorant  tenants,  must  overbalance  the  saving  of  the 
first  few  years  of  neglect ;  for  this  class  is  everywhere  the 
most  destructive,  as  well  as  the  poorest  paying.  I  have  the 
experience  of  owners,  who  have  found  this  out  to  their 
cost,  to  back  me  up  in  the  assertion,  even  if  it  were  not 
the  statement  of  a  plain  business  fact  that  proves  itself. 
I, do  not  include  tenement  property  that  is  deliberately 
allowed  to  fall  into  decay  because  at  some  future  time  the 
ground  will  be  valuable  for  business  or  other  purposes. 
There  is  unfortunately  enough  of  that  kind  in  Xew  York, 
often  leasehold  property  owned  by  wealthy  estates  or  soul- 
less corporations  that  oppose  all  their  great  influence  to 
the  efforts  of  the  law  in  behalf  of  their  tenants. 

There  is  abundant  evidence,  on  the  other  hand,  that  it 
can  be  made  to  pay  to  improve  and  make  the  most  of  the 
worst  tenement  property,  even  in  the  most  wretched  lo- 
cality. The  example  set  by  Miss  Ellen  Collins  in  her 
Water  Street  houses  will  always  stand  as  a  decisive  answer 
to  all  doubts  on  this  point.  It  is  quite  ten  years  since  she 
bought  three  old  tenements  at  the  corner  of  Water  and 
Roosevelt  Streets,  then  as  now  one  of  the  lowest  localities 
in  the  city.  Since  then  she  has  leased  three  more  adjoin- 
ing her  purchase,  and  so  much  of  Water  Street  has  at  all 
events  been  purified.  Her  first  effort  was  to  let  in  the 
light  in  the  hallways,  and  with  the  darkness  disappeared, 
as  if  by  magic,  the  heaps  of  refuse  that  used  to  be  piled 


286 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


up  beside  the  sinks.  A  few  of  the  most  refractory  ten- 
ants disappeared  with  them,  but  a  very  considerable  pro- 
portion stayed,  conforming  readily  to  the  new  rules,  and 
are  there  yet.  It  should  here  be  stated  that  Miss  Collins's 
tenants  are  distinctly  of  the  poorest.  Her  purpose  was  to 
experiment  with  this  class,  and  her  experiment  has  been 
more  than  satisfactory.  Her  plan  was,  as  she  puts  it  her- 
self, fair  play  between  tenant  and  landlord.  To  this  end 
the  rents  were  put  as  low  as  consistent  with  the  idea  of  a 
business  investment  that  must  return  a  reasonable  interest 
to  be  successful.  The  houses  were  thoroughly  refitted 
with  proper  plumbing.  A  competent  janitor  was  put  in 
charge  to  see  that  the  rules  were  observed  by  the  tenants, 
when  Miss  Collins  herself  was  not  there.  Of  late  years 
she  has  had  to  give  very  little  time  to  personal  superintend- 
ence, and  the  care-taker  told  me  only  the  other  day  that 
very  little  was  needed.  The  houses  seemed  to  run  them- 
selves in  the  groove  once  laid  down.  Once  the  reputed 
haunt  of  thieves,  they  have  become  the  most  orderly 
in  the  neighborhood.  Clothes  are  left  hanging;  on  the 
lines  all  night  with  impunity,  and  the  pretty  flower-beds 
in  the  yard  where  the  children  not  only  from  the  six  houses, 
but  of  the  whole  block,  play,  skip,  and  swing,  are  undis- 
turbed. The  tenants,  by  the  way,  provide  the  flowers 
themselves  in  che  spring,  and  take  all  the  more  pride  in 
them  because  they  are  their  own.  The  six  houses  contain 
forty-five  families,  and  there  "  has  never  been  any  need  of 
putting  up  a  bill."  As  to  the  income  from  the  property, 
Miss  Collins  said  to  me  last  August :  "  I  have  had  six  and 
even  six  and  three-quarters  per  cent,  on  the  capital  in- 
vested ;  on  the  whole,  you  may  safely  say  five  and  a  half 
per  cent.  This  I  regard  as  entirely  satisfactory."  It 
should  be  added  that  she  has  persistently  refused  to  let  the 


HOW  THE  CASE  STANDS. 


287 


corner-store,  now  occupied  by  a  butcher,  as  a  saloon;  oi- 
lier income  from  it  might  have  been  considerably  in- 
creased. 

Miss  Collius's  experience  is  of  value  chiefly  as  showing 
what  can  be  accomplished  with  the  worst  possible  mate- 
rial, by  the  sort  of  personal  interest  in  the  poor  that  alone 
will  meet  their  real  needs.  All  the  charity  in  the  world, 
scattered  with  the  most  lavish  hand,  will  not  take  its 
place.  "Fair  play  "  between  landlord  and  tenant  is  the 
key,  too  long  mislaid,  that  unlocks  the  door  to  success 
everywhere  as  it  did  for  Miss  Collins.  She  has  not  lacked 
imitators  whose  experience  has  been  akin  to  her  own. 
The  case  of  Gotham  Court  has  been  already  cited.  On 
the  other  hand,  instances  are  not  wanting  of  landlords 
who  have  undertaken  the  task,  but  have  tired  of  it  or 
sold  their  property  before  it  had  been  fully  redeemed, 
with  the  result  that  it  relapsed  into  its  former  bad  condi- 
tion faster  than  it  had  improved,  and  the  tenants  with  it. 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  such  houses  are  liable  to  fall 
even  below  the  average  level.  Backsliding  in  brick  and 
mortar  does  not  greatly  differ  from  similar  performances 
in  flesh  and  blood. 

Backed  by  a  strong  and  steady  sentiment,  such  as  these 
pioneers  have  evinced,  that  would  make  it  the  personal 
business  of  wealthy  owners  with  time  to  spare  to  look 
after  their  tenants,  the  law  would  be  able  in  a  very  short 
time  to  work  a  salutary  transformation  in  the  worst  quar- 
ters, to  the  lasting  advantage,  I  am  well  persuaded,  of  the 
landlord  no  less  than  the  tenant.  Unfortunately,  it  is  in 
this  quality  of  personal  effort  that  the  sentiment  of  inter- 
est in  the  poor,  upon  which  we  have  to  depend,  is  too 
often  lacking.  People  who  are  willing  to  give  money  feel 
that  that  ought  to  be  enough.    It  is  not.    The  money 


288 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


thus  given  is  too  apt  to  be  wasted  along  with  the  senti- 
ment that  prompted  the  gift. 

Even  when  it  comes  to  the  third  of  the  ways  I  spoke  of 
as  effective  in  dealing  with  the  tenement-house  problem, 
the  building  of  model  structures,  the  personal  interest  in 
the  matter  must  form  a  large  share  of  the  capital  in- 
vested, if  it  is  to  yield  full  returns.  Where  that  is  the 
case,  there  is  even  less  doubt  about  its  paying,  with  ordi- 
nary business  management,  than  in  the  case  of  reclaiming 
an  old  building,  which  is,  like  putting  life  into  a  defunct 
newspaper,  pretty  apt  to  be  up-hill  work.  Model  tene- 
ment building  has  not  been  attempted  in  New  York  on 
anything  like  as  large  a  scale  as  in  many  other  great  cities, 
and  it  is  perhaps  owing  to  this,  in  a  measure,  that  a  belief 
prevails  that  it  cannot  succeed  here.  This  is  a  wrong  no- 
tion entirely.  The  various  undertakings  of  that  sort  that 
have  been  made  here  under  intelligent  management  have, 
as  far  as  I  know,  all  been  successful. 

From  the  managers  of  the  two  best-known  experiments 
in  model  tenement  building  in  the  city,  the  Improved 
Dwellings  Association  and  the  Tenement-house  Build- 
ing Company,  I  have  letters  dated  last  August,  declaring 
their  enterprises  eminently  successful.  There  is  no  reason 
why  their  experience  should  not  be  conclusive.  That  the 
Philadelphia  plan  is  not  practicable  in  Xew  York  is  not 
a  good  reason  why  our  own  plan,  which  is  precisely  the 
reverse  of  our  neighbor's,  should  not  be.  In  fact  it  is  an 
argument  for  its  success.  The  very  reason  why  we  cannot 
house  our  working  masses  in  cottages,  as  has  been  done  in 
Philadelphia — viz.,  that  they  must  live  on  Manhattan 
Island,  where  the  land  is  too  costly  for  small  houses — is 
the  best  guarantee  of  the  success  of  the  model  tenement 
house,  properly  located  and  managed.    The  drift  in  tene- 


HOW  THE  CASE  STANDS. 


289 


ment  building,  as  in  everything  else,  is  toward  concen- 
tration, and  helps  smooth  the  way.  Four  families  on 
the  floor,  twenty  in  the  house,  is  the  rule  of  to-day. 
As  the  crowds  increase,  the  need  of  guiding  this  drift 
into  safe  channels  becomes  more  urgent.  The  larger  the 
scale  upon  which  the  model  tenement  is  planned,  the 
more  certain  the  promise  of  success.  The  utmost  ingenu- 
ity cannot  build  a  house  for  sixteen  or  twenty  families  on  a 
lot  25  x  100  feet  in  the  middle  of  a  block  like  it,  that  shall 
give  them  the  amount  of  air  and  sunlight  to  be  had  by  the 
erection  of  a  dozen  or  twenty  houses  on  a  common  plan 
around  a  central  yard.  This  was  the  view  of  the  commit- 
tee that  awarded  the  prizes  for  the  best  plan  for  the  con- 
ventional tenement,  ten  years  ago.  It  coupled  its  verdict 
with  the  emphatic  declaration  that,  in  its  view,  it  was  "  im- 
possible to  secure  the  requirements  of  physical  and  moral 
health  within  these  narrow  and  arbitrary  limits."  Houses 
have  been  built  since  on  better  plans  than  any  the  com- 
mittee saw,  but  its  judgment  stands  unimpaired.  A  point, 
too,  that  is  not  to  be  overlooked,  is  the  reduced  cost  of 
expert  superintendence — the  first  condition  of  successful 
management — in  the  larger  buildings. 

The  Improved  Dwellings  Association  put  up  its  block 
of  thirteen  houses  in  East  Seventy-second  Street  nine  years 
ago.  Their  cost,  estimated  at  about  8-^0,000  with  the 
land,  was  increased  to  s285,000  by  troubles  with  the  con- 
tractor engaged  to  build  them.  Thus  the  Association's 
task  did  not  begin  under  the  happiest  auspices.  Unex- 
pected expenses  came  to  deplete  its  treasury.  The  neigh- 
borhood was  new  and  not  crowded  at  the  start.  No  ex- 
pense was  spared,  and  the  benefit  of  all  the  best  and  most 
recent  experience  in  tenement  building  was  given  to  the 
tenants.  The  families  were  provided  with  from  two  to 
19 


290 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


four  rooms,  all  "  outer"*'  rooms,  of  course,  at  rents  ranging 
from  §14:  per  month  for  the  four  on  the  ground  floor,  to 
$6.25  for  two  rooms  on  the  top  floor.  Coal  lifts,  ash- 
chutes,  common  laundries  in  the  basement,  and  free  baths, 
are  features  of  these  buildings  that  were  then  new  enough 
to  be  looked  upon  with  suspicion  by  the  doubting  Thom- 
ases who  predicted  disaster.  There  are  rooms  in  the  block 
for  218  families,  and  when  I  looked  in  recently  all  but  nine 
of  the  apartments  were  let.  One  of  the  nine  wTas  rented 
while  I  was  in  the  building.  The  superintendent  told  me 
that  he  had  little  trouble  with  disorderly  tenants,  though 
the  buildings  shelter  all  sorts  of  people.  Mr.  W.  Bayard 
Cutting,  the  President  of  the  Association,  writes  to  me  : 

"  By  the  terms  of  subscription  to  the  stock  before  incor- 
poration, dividends  were  limited  to  five  per  cent,  on  the 
stock  of  the  Improved  Dwellings  Association.  These  div- 
idends have  been  paid  (two  per  cent,  each  six  months)  ever 
since  the  expiration  of  the  first  six  months  of  the  buildings 
operation.  All  surplus  has  been  expended  upon  the  build- 
ings. Xew  and  expensive  roofs  have  been  put  on  for  the 
comfort  of  such  tenants  as  might  choose  to  use  them.  The 
buildings  have  been  completely  painted  inside  and  out  in 
a  manner  not  contemplated  at  the  outset.  An  expensive 
set  of  fire-escapes  has  been  put  on  at  the  command  of  the 
Fire  Department,  and  a  considerable  number  of  other  im- 
provements made.  I  regard  the  experiment  as  eminently 
successful  and  satisfactory ,  particularly  when  it  is  consid- 
ered that  the  buildings  were  the  first  erected  in  this  city 
upon  anything  like  a  large  scale,  where  it  was  proposed  to 
meet  the  architectural  difficulties  that  present  themselves 
in  the  tenement-house  problem.  I  have  no  doubt  that 
the  experiment  could  be  tried  to-day  with  the  improved 
knowledge  which  has  come  with  time,  and  a  much  larger 


HOW  THE  CASE  STANDS.  291 

I 

return  be  shown  upon  the  investment.  The  results  re- 
ferred to  have  been  attained  in  spite  of  the  provision 
which  prevents  the  selling  of  liquor  upon  the  Association's 
premises.  You  are  aware,  of  course,  how  much  larger 
rent  can  be  obtained  for  a  liquor  saloon  than  for  an  ordi- 
nary store.  An  investment  at  five  per  cent,  net  upon  real 
estate  security  worth  more  than  the  principal  sum,  ought 
to  be  considered  desirable." 

The  Tenement  House  Building  Company  made  its  "ex- 
periment" in  a  much  more  difficult  neighborhood,  Cher- 
ry Street,  some  six  years  later.  Its  houses  shelter  many 
Russian  Jews,  and  the  difficulty  of  keeping  them  in  order 
is  correspondingly  increased,  particularly  as  there  are  no 
ash-chutes  in  the  houses.  It  has  been  necessary  even  to 
shut  the  children  out  of  the  yards  upon  which  the  kitchen 
windows  give,  lest  they  be  struck  by  something  thrown 
out  by  the  tenants,  and  killed.  It  is  the  Cherry  Street 
style,  not  easily  got  rid  of.  Xevertheless,  the  houses  are 
well  kept.  Of  the  one  hundred  and  six  "  apartments," 
only  four  were  vacant  in  August.  Professor  Edwin  K. 
A.  Seligman,  the  secretary  of  the  company,  writes  to  me : 
"  The  tenements  are  now  a  decided  success."  In  the 
three  years  since  they  were  built,  they  have  returned  an 
interest  of  from  five  to  five  and  a  half  per  cent,  on  the 
capital  invested.  The  original  intention  of  making  the 
tenants  profit-sharers  on  a  plan  of  rent  insurance,  under 
which  all  earnings  above  four  per  cent,  would  be  put  to 
the  credit  of  the  tenants,  has  not  yet  been  carried  out. 

A  scheme  of  dividends  to  tenants  on  a  somewhat  simi- 
lar plan  has  been  carried  out  by  a  Brooklyn  builder,  Mr. 
A.  T.  White,  who  has  devoted  a  life  of  beneficent  activity 
to  tenement  building,  and  whose  experience,  though  it 
has  been  altogether  across  the  East  River,  I  regard  as 


294 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


justly  applying  to  New  York  as  well.  He  so  regards  it 
himself.  Discussing  the  cost  of  building,  he  says : 
"  There  is  not  the  slightest  reason  to  doubt  that  the  finan- 
cial result  of  a  similar  undertaking  in  any  tenement- 
house  district  of  New  York  City  would  be  equally  good. 
.  .  .  High  cost  of  land  is  no  detriment,  provided  the 
value  is  made  by  the  pressure  of  people  seeking  residence 
there.  Rents  in  New  York  City  bear  a  higher  ratio  to 
Brooklyn  rents  than  would  the  cost  of  land  and  building 
in  the  one  city  to  that  in  the  other."  The  assertion  that 
Brooklyn  furnishes  a  better  class  of  tenants  than  the  ten- 
ement districts  in  New  York  would  not  be  worth  discuss- 
ing seriously,  even  if  Mr.  White  did  not  meet  it  himself 
with  the  statement  that  the  proportion  of  day-laborers 
and  sewing-women  in  his  houses  is  greater  than  in  any  of 
the  London  model  tenements,  showing  that  they  reach 
the  humblest  classes. 

Mr.  White  has  built  homes  for  five  hundred  poor  fami- 
lies since  he  began  his  work,  and  has  made  it  pay  well 
enough  to  allow  good  tenants  a  share  in  the  profits,  aver- 
aging nearly  one  month's  rent  out  of  the  twelve,  as  a  pre- 
mium upon  promptness  and  order.  The  plan  of  his  last 
tenements,  reproduced  on  p.  292,  may  be  justly  regarded 
as  the  beau  ideal  of  the  model  tenement  for  a  great  city 
like  New  York.  It  embodies  all  the  good  features  of  Sir 
Sydney  Waterlow's  London  plan,  with  improvements  sug- 
gested by  the  builder's  own  experience.  Its  chief  merit 
is  that  it  gathers  three  hundred  real  homes,  not  simply 
three  hundred  families,  under  one  roof.  Three  tenants,  it 
will  be  seen,  everywhere  live  together.  Of  the  rest  of 
the  three  hundred  they  may  never  know,  rarely  see,  one. 
Each  has  his  private  front-door.  The  common  hall,  with 
all  that  it  stands  for,  has  disappeared.     The  fire-proof 


HOAV  THE  CASE  STANDS. 


295 


stairs  are  outside  the  house,  a  perfect  fire-escape.  Each 
tenant  has  his  own  scullery  and  ash-flue.  There  are  no 
air-shafts,  for  they  are  not  needed.  Every  room,  under 
the  admirable  arrangement  of  the  plan,  looks  out  either 
upon  the  street  or  the  yard,  that  is  nothing  less  than  a 
great  park  with  a  play-ground  set  apart  for  the  children, 
where  they  may  dig  in  the  sand  to  their  heart's  content. 
Weekly  concerts  are  given  in  the  park  by  a  brass  band. 
The  drying  of  clothes  is  done  on  the  roof,  where  racks 
are  fitted  up  for  the  purpose.  The  outside  stairways  end 
in  turrets  that  give  the  buildings  a  very  smart  appearance. 
Mr.  White  never  has  any  trouble  with  his  tenants,  though 
he  gathers  in  the  poorest ;  nor  do  his  tenements  have  any- 
thing of  the  "institution  character"  that  occasionally  at- 
taches to  ventures  of  this  sort,  to  their  damage.  They  are 
like  a  big  village  of  contented  people,  who  live  in  peace 
with  one  another  because  they  have  elbow-room  even  un- 
der one  big  roof. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  model  tenements 
can  be  built  successfully  and  made  to  pay  in  Xew  York, 
if  the  owner  will  be  content  with  the  five  or  six  per  cent, 
he  does  not  even  dream  of  when  investing  his  funds  in 
"  governments  "  at  three  or  four.  It  is  true  that  in  the 
latter  case  he  has  only  to  cut  off  his  coupons  and  cash 
them.  But  the  extra  trouble  of  looking  after  his  tene- 
ment property,  that  is  the  condition  of  his  highest  and 
lasting  success,  is  the  penalty  exacted  for  the  sins  of  our 
fathers  that  "  shall  be  visited  upon  the  children,  unto  the 
third  and  fourth  generation."  We  shall  indeed  be  well 
off,  if  it  stop  there.  I  fear  there  is  too  much  reason  to 
believe  that  our  own  inicpities  must  be  added  to  transmit 
the  curse  still  further.  And  yet,  such  is  the  leavening  in- 
fluence of  a  good  deed  in  that  dreary  desert  of  sin  and 


296 


HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES. 


suffering,  that  the  erection  of  a  single  good  tenement  has 
the  power  to  change,  gradually  but  surely,  the  character 
of  a  whole  bad  block.  It  sets  up  a  standard  to  which  the 
neighborhood  must  rise,  if  it  cannot  succeed  in  dragging 
it  down  to  its  own  low  level. 

And  so  this  task,  too,  has  come  to  an  end.  Whatsoever 
a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap.  I  have  aimed  to 
tell  the  truth  as  I  saw  it.  If  this  book  shall  have  borne 
ever  so  feeble  a  hand  in  garnering  a  harvest  of  justice,  it 
has  served  its  purpose.  While  I  was  writing  these  lines  I 
went  down  to  the  sea,  where  thousands  from  the  city 
were  enjoying  their  summer  rest.  The  ocean  slumbered 
under  a  cloudless  sky.  Gentle  waves  washed  lazily  over 
the  white  sand,  where  children  fled  before  them  with 
screams  of  laughter.  Standing  there  and  watching  their 
play,  I  was  told  that  during  the  fierce  storms  of  winter  it 
happened  that  this  sea,  now  so  calm,  rose  in  rage  and 
beat  down,  broke  over  the  bluff,  sweeping  all  before  it. 
Xo  barrier  built  by  human  hands  had  power  to  stay  it 
then.  The  sea  of  a  mighty  population,  held  in  galling 
fetters,  heaves  uneasily  in  the  tenements.  Once  already 
our  city,  to  which  have  come  the  duties  and  responsibili- 
ties of  metropolitan  greatness  before  it  was  able  to  fairly 
measure  its  task,  has  felt  the  swell  of  its  resistless  flood. 
If  it  rise  once  more,  no  human  power  may  avail  to  check 
it.  The  gap  between  the  classes  in  which  it  surges,  un- 
seen, unsuspected  by  the  thoughtless,  is  widening  day  by 
day.  iso  tardy  enactment  of  law,  no  political  expedient, 
can  close  it.  Against  all  other  dangers  our  system  of  gov- 
ernment may  offer  defence  and  shelter ;  against  this  not. 
I  know  of  but  one  bridge  that  will  carry  us  over  safe,  a 
bridge  founded  upon  justice  and  built  of  human  hearts. 


HOW  THE  CASE  STANDS. 


297 


I  believe  that  the  danger  of  such  conditions  as  are  fast 
growing  up  around  us  is  greater  for  the  very  freedom 
which  they  mock.  The  words  of  the  poet,  with  whose 
lines  I  prefaced  this  book,  are  truer  to-day,  have  far 
deeper  meaning  to  us,  than  when  they  were  penned  forty 
years  ago  : 

"  — Think  ye  that  building  shall  endure 
Which  shelters  the  noble  and  crushes  the  poor  ?  " 


APPENDIX. 


STATISTICS  BEAKIXG  ON  THE  TENEMENT  PEOBLEM. 

Statistics  of  population  were  left  out  of  the  text  in  the  hope 
that  the  results  of  this  year's  census  would  be  available  as  a  basis 
for  calculation  before  the  book  went  to  press.  They  are  now  at 
hand,  but  their  correctness  is  disputed.  The  statisticians  of  the 
Health  Department  claim  that  New  York's  population  has  been 
underestimated  a  hundred  thousand  at  least,  and  they  appear  to 
have  the  best  of  the  argument.  A  re-count  is  called  for,  and  the 
printer  will  not  wait.  Such  statistics  as  follow  have  been  based  on 
the  Health  Department  estimates,  except  where  the  census  source 
is  given.  The  extent  of  the  quarrel  of  official  figures  may  be  judged 
from  this  one  fact,  that  the  ordinarily  conservative  and  careful  cal- 
culations of  the  Sanitary  Bureau  make  the  death-rate  of  New 
YorL:  in  1889,  25.19  for  the  thousand  of  a  population  of  1,575,073, 
while  the  census  would  make  it  26.76  in  a  population  of  1,482,273. 


Population  of  New  York,  1880  (census)   1,206,299 

London,  1881         "    3,816,483 

Philadelphia,  1880  "    846,980 

Brooklyn,  1880      "    566,689 

Boston*  1880          "    362,535 

New  York,  1889  (estimated)   1,575,073 

London,  1889           "    4,351,738 

Philadelphia,  1889     "    1,040,245 

Brooklyn,         "       "    814,505 

Boston,            "       "    420,000 

'  <  New  York  under  five  years  of  age,  in  1880  140,327 
a               «         «          "          "  1889 

'(estimated)   182,770 


300 


APPENDIX. 


Population  of  tenements  in  New  York  in  1869*  (census).  468,492 

"        "          "          1888  f      "  1,093,701 
"               "        "         "           "    under  five 

years  of  age   143,243 

Population  of  New  York  in  1880  (census)   1,206,299 

Manhattan  Island  in  1880  (census)   1,164,673 

Tenth  Ward  in  1880  (census)   47,554 

Eleventh  Ward   "        "    68,778 

"         Thirteenth  Ward  in  1880  (census)   37,797 

New  York  in  1890  (census)   1,513,501 

"          Manhattan  Island  in  1890  (census)   1,440,101 

' '          Tenth  Ward  in  1890  (census)   57,514 

Eleventh  Ward   "         "    75,708 

Thirteenth  Ward  in  1890  (census)    45,882 

Number  of  acres  in  New  York  City   24,890 

Manhattan  Island   12,673 

Tenth  Ward   110 

Eleventh  Ward   196 

Thirteenth  Ward   107 

Density  of  population  per  acre  in  1880,  New  York  City.  48.4 
Density  of  population  per  acre  in  1880,  Manhattan 

Island   92.6 

Density  of  population  per  acre  in  1880,  Tenth  Ward. .  .  432.3 

Density  of  population  per  acre  in  1880,  Eleventh  Ward  350.9 

Density  of  population  per  acre  in  1880,  Thirteenth  Ward  353.2 
Density  of  population  per  acre  in  1890,  New  York  City 

(census)   60.08 

Density  of  population  per  acre  in  1890,  Manhattan 

Island  (census)    114.53 

Density  of  population  per  acre  in  1890,  Tenth  Ward 

(census)   522.00 

Density  of  population  per  acre  in  1890,  Eleventh  Ward 

(census)   386.00 

Density  of  population  per  acre  in  1890,  Thirteenth  Ward 

(census)   428.8 

Density  of  population  to  the  square  mile  in  1880,  New 

York  City  (census)   30,976 

*  In  18fi9a  tenement  was  a  house  occupied  by  four  families  or  more, 
t  In  1888,  a  tenement  was  a  house  occupied  by  three  families  or  more. 


APPENDIX.  301 

Density  of  population  to  the  square  mile  in  1880,  Man- 
hattan Island  (census)   -41,264: 

Density  of  population  to  the  square  mile  in  1880,  Tenth 

Ward  (census)   276,672 

Density  of  population  to  the  square  mile  in  1880,  Elev- 
enth Ward  (census)   224,576 

Density  of  population  to  the  square  mile  in  1880,  Thir- 
teenth Ward  (census)   226,048 

Density  of  population  to  the  square  mile  in  1890,  New 

York  City  (census)   38,451 

Density  of  population  to  the  square  mile  in  1890,  Man- 
hattan Island  (census)   73,299 

Density  of  population  to  the  square  mile  in  1890,  Tenth 

Ward  (census)   334,080 

Density  of  population  to  the  square  mile  in  1890,  Elev- 
enth Ward  (census)   246,040 

Density  of  population  to  the  square  mile  in  1890,  Thir- 
teenth Ward  (census)     274,432 

Number  of  persons  to  a  dwelling  in  New  York,  1880 

(census)   16.37 

Number  of  persons  to  a  dwelling  in  London,  1881  (cen- 
sus)   7.9 

Number  of  persons  to  a  dwelling  in  Philadelphia,  1880 

(census)   5.79 

Number  of  persons  to  a  dwelling  in  Brooklyn,  1880 

(census)   9.11 

Number  of  persons  to  a  dwelling  in  Boston,  1880  (cen- 
sus)  8.26 

Number  of  deaths  in  New  York,  1880   31,937 

London,  1881...!   81,431 

Philadelphia,  1880   17,711 

Brooklyn,  1880    13,222 

Boston,  1880    8,612 

Death-rate  of  New  York,  1880    26.47 

London,  1881   21.3 

Philadelphia,  1880   20.91 

Brooklyn,  1880    23.33 

Boston,  1880   23.75 

Number  of  deaths  in  New  York,  1889    39,679 


302 


APPENDIX. 


Number  of  deaths  in  London,  1889    75,683 

Philadelphia,  1889   20,536. 

Brooklyn,  1889   18,288" 

Boston,  1889    10,259 

Death-rate  of  New  York,  1889    25.19 

London,  1889    17.4 

Philadelphia,  1889   19.7 

Brooklyn,  1889   22.5 

Boston^  1889   24.42 


For  every  person  who  dies  there  are  always  two  disabled  by  ill- 
ness, so  that  there  was  a  regular  average  of  79,358  New  Yorkers 
on  the  sick-list  at  any  moment  last  year.  It  is  usual  to  count  28 
cases  of  sickness  the  year  round  for  every  death,  and  this  would 
give  a  total  for  the  year  1889  of  1,111,082  of  illness  of  all  sorts. 


Number  of  deaths  in  tenements  in  New  York,  1869   13,285 

1888   24,842 

Death-rate  in  tenements  in  New  York,  1869   28.35 

1888   22.71 


This  is  exclusive  of  deaths  in  institutions,  properly  referable  to 
the  tenements  in  most  cases.  The  adult  death-rate  is  found  to 
decrease  in  the  larger  tenements  of  newer  construction.  The 
child  mortality  increases,  reaching  114.04  per  cent,  of  1,000  living 
in  houses  containing  between  60  and  80  tenants.  From  this  point 
it  decreases  with  the  adult  death-rate. 


Number  of  deaths  in  prisons,  New  York,  1889    85 

hospitals,  New  York,  1889   6,102 

lunatic  asylums,  New  York,  1889 ....  448 
"          "            institutions  for  children,  New  York, 

1889    522 

homes  for  aged,  New  York,  1889    238 

Mmshouse,  New  York,  1889   424 

"  "  other  institutions,  New  York,  1889. .  162 
Number  of  burials  in  city  cemetery  (paupers),  New  York, 

1889    3,815 

Percentage  of  such  burials  on  total   9.64 


APPENDIX. 


303 


Number  of  tenants  weeded  out  of  overcrowded  tenements, 

New  York,  1889   1,246 

Number  of  tenants  weeded  out  of  overcrowded  tenements, 

in  first  half  of  1890*   1,068 

Number  of  sick  poor  visited  by  summer  corps  of  doctors, 

New  York,  1890   16,501 

Police  Statistics. 

Males.  Females. 

Arrests  made  by  the  police  in  1889   62,274  19,926 

Number  of  arrests  for  drunkenness  and  disor- 
derly conduct   20,253  8,981 

Number  of  arrests  for  disorderly  conduct   10,953  7,477 

"  "  assault  and  battery   4,534  497 

theft   4,399  721 

"  robbery   247  10 

"  "  vagrancy   1,686  947 

Prisoners  unable  to  read  or  write   2,399  1,281 

Number  of  lost  children  found  in  the  streets,  1889   2,968 

"         sick  and  destitute  cared  for,  1889    2,753 

Found  sick  in  the  streets   1,211 

Number  of  pawnshops  in  city,  1889   110 

"         cheap  lodging-houses,  1889   270 

saloons,  1889   7,884 

Immigration. 

Immigrants  landed  at  Castle  Garden  in  20  years,  ending 

with  1889   5,335,396 

Immigrants  landed  at  Castle  Garden  in  1889   349,233 

Immigrants  from  England  landed  at  Castle  Garden  in 

1889    46,214 

Immigrants  from  Scotland  landed  at  Castle  Garden  in 

1889    1M15 

Immigrants  from  Ireland  landed  at  Castle  Garden  in 

1889    43,090 

Immigrants  from  Germany  landed  at  Castle  Garden  in 

1889    75,458 

*  These  figures  represent  less  than  two  hundred  of  the  worst  tenements  below  Hous. 
ton  Street. 


304 


APPENDIX. 


1883. 

1884. 

1885. 

1886. 

1887. 

1888. 

1889. 

Italy  

25,485 

14,076 

16,033 

29,312 

44,274 

43,927 

28,810 

Russia  ^ 

7,577 

12,432 

16,578 

23,987 

33,203 

33,052 

31,329 

13,160 

15,797 

11,129 

18.135 

17,719 

12,905 

15,678 

4,877 

7,093 

6,697 

4,222 

6,449 

3,982 

5,412 

Tenements. 

Number  of  tenements  in  New  York,  December  1,  1888.  32,390 

Number  built  from  June  1,  1888,  to  August  1,  1890   3,733 

Bear  tenements  in  existence,  August  1,  1890   2,630 

Total  number  of  tenements,  August  1,  1890   37,316 

Estimated  population  of  tenements,  August  1,  1890. .  .  1,250,000 
Estimated  number  of  children  under  five  years  in  tene- 
ments, 1890   163,712 

Corner  tenements  may  cover  all  of  the  lot,  except  4  feet  at 
the  rear.  Tenements  in  the  block  may  only  cover  seventy-eight 
per  cent,  of  the  lot.  They  must  have  a  rear  yard  10  feet  wide,  and 
air-shafts  or  open  courts  equal  to  twelve  per  cent,  of  the  lot. 

Tenements  or  apartment  houses  must  not  be  built  over  70  feet 
high  in  streets  60  feet  wide. 

Tenements  or  apartment  houses  must  not  be  built  over  80  feet 
high  in  streets  wider  than  60  feet. 


